COLLECTED    POEMS 


I'^'iA/'vt^   /A,  ^^Vki    a<? 


COLLECTED 
POEMS 

BY 

EDWARD    THOMAS 

WITH   A   FOREWORD   BY 

WALTER   DE   LA   MARE 


NEW   YORK 

THOMAS   SELTZER 

1921 


PRINTED    IN    GREAT    BRITAIN 


55 


H 


Forevi'ord 

All  that  Edward  Thomas  was  as  a  friend  lies  half- 
concealed  in  his  poems.  He  wrote  many  books.  A  /V|  A  /  /\^ 
few  of  them — "  Light  and  Twilight,"  "  The  Happy- 
Go-Lucky  Morgans,"  the  "  Richard  Jefferies,"  for 
instance — were  of  his  own  choice,  after  his  own  heart. 
Many  of  the  others  were  in  the  nature  of  obhgations 
thrust  upon  him.  For  to  be  able  not  to  write  for  a 
living,  but  in  happy  obedience  to  the  life  within, 
it  is  necessary  to  gain  a  livelihood. 

Edward  Thomas's  independence,  his  fine  sense  of 
literature,  his  love  of  truth,  his  dehcate  yet  vigorous 
intuition  are  never  absent  even  in  his  merest  journey- 
work.  Yet  there  cannot  but  be  a  vital  difference  in 
the  thing  done  solely  for  its  own  sake.  He  toiled  on, 
"  Happy  sometimes,  sometimes  suffering  a  heavy 
body  and  a  heavy  heart "  under  the  grimmest  dis- 
ciplinarian a  man  can  have — himself. 

Nevertheless  his  rarer  faculties  were  obviously  not 
such  as  can  please  a  wide  pubHc  ;  nor  was  he  possessed 
of  some  of  the  admirable  faculties  that  can  and  do. 
He  was  not  a  born  story-teller ;  nor  that  chame- 
leonic creature,  a  dramatist.  He  had  little  invention 
or  fantasy.  He  detested  mere  cleverness  ;  and  com- 
promise was  alien  to  his  nature.  He  could  delight  in 
"  a  poor  man  of  any  sort  down  to  a  king  "  ;  but  the 
range  is  obviously  exclusive  and  graduated.    He  was 

V 


46841 


not  therefore  possessed  of  the  happy  and  dangerous 
facility  or  inspiration  of  being  all  things  to  all  men. 
Faithful  and  solitary  lover  of  the  lovely  that  is  not 
beloved  by  most  of  us  at  much  expense,  he  could  not, 
then,  as  have  other  men  of  genius  and  talent,  at  once 
woo  fame  and  win  fortune.  Personality  indeed  may 
be  the  profoundest  incentive  of  a  man's  life  ;  and 
compared  with  a  true  artist's  conscience,  Tamerlane 
is  tender-hearted. 

A  man,  too,  may  be  an  artist — though  not  a  great 
artist — at  a  rather  severe  cost  to  his  humanity. 
Edward  Thomas's  desire  as  an  artist  was  to  express 
the  truth  about  himself  and  his  reality.  It  is  far 
less  art  in  a  sense  that  is  the  target  of  his  poems 
than  life,  emancipation,  self-possession,  and  the  self- 
Sc-^crifice  which  is  the  truest  realisation.  Late  in  his 
life,  when  he  seems  almost  to  have  given  up  hope  of 
it,  came  to  him  this  sudden  creative  impulse,  the 
incentive  of  a  new  form  into  which  he  could  pour  his 
thoughts,  feelings  and  experience  with  ease  and  free- 
dom and  delight.  Utterly  unforeseen  also  may  have 
been  the  discovery  that  he  was  born  to  live  and  die 
a  soldier.  Yet  in  those  last  years,  however  desperate 
at  times  the  distaste  and  disquiet,  however  sharp  the 
sacrifice,  he  found  an  unusual  serenity  and  satisfaction. 
His  comradeship,  his  humour  blossomed  over.  He 
plunged  back  from  books  into  life,  and  wrote  only  for 
sheer  joy  in  writing.  To  read  "  The  Trumpet," 
"  Tears,"  or  "  This  is  no  Case  of  Petty  Right  or 
vi 


Wrong,"  is  to  realise  the  brave  spirit  that  compelled 
him  to  fling  away  the  safety  which  without  the  least 
loss  of  honour  he  might  have  accepted,  and  to  go 
back  to  his  men,  and  his  guns,  and  death.  These 
poems  show,  too,  that  he  was  doubly  homesick,  for 
this  and  for  another  world,  no  less  clearly  than  they 
show  how  intense  a  happiness  was  the  fruition  of  his 
livelong  hope  and  desire  to  prove  himself  a  poet.  On 
the  one  side  his  "  Words  "  : 


Out  of  us  all 

That  make  rhymes, 

Will  you  choose 

Sometimes — 

As  the  winds  use 

A  crack  in  a  wall 

Or  a  drain, 

Their  joy  or  their  pain 

To  whistle  through — 

Choose  me, 

You  English  words  ? 

I  know  you : 

You  are  light  as  dreams, 

Tough  as  oak, 

Precious  as  gold. 

As  poppies  and  corn. 

Or  an  old  cloak  : 

Sweet  as  our  birds 

To  the  ear. 

As  the  burnet  rose 

In  the  heat 

Of  Midsummer  .  .  . 

Make  me  content 

With  some  sweetness 

From  Wales 

Whose  nightingales 

Have  no  wings — 

vii 


Fro'.n  Wiltshire  and  Kent 

And  Herefordshire, 

And  the  villages  there — - 

From  the  names,  and  the  things 

No  less. 

Let  me  sometimes  dance 

With  you. 

Or  climb 

Or  stand  perchance 

In  ecstasy, 

Fixed  and  free 

In  a  rhyme, 

As  poets  do. 

And  on  the  other  side,  one  of  the  loveliest  and  most 
perfect  in  form  of  all  his  poems,  "  Lights  Out  "  : 

^  I  have  come  to  the  borders  of  sleep, 

/  The  unfathomable  deep 

'■  Forest  where  all  must  lose 

Their  way,  however  straight, 

Or  winding,  soon  or  late  ; 

They  cannot  choose.  .  .  . 

Here  love  ends, 

Despair,  ambition  ends, 

All  pleasure  and  all  trouble. 

Although  most  sweet  or  bitter. 

Here  ends  in  sleep  that  is  sweeter 

Than  tasks  most  noble.  .  .  . 

This  intensity  of  solitude,  this  impassioned,  almost 
trancelike,  delight  in  things  natural,  simple,  "  short- 
lived and  happy-seeming,"  "  lovely  of  motion,  shape 
and  hue,"  is  expressed — even  when  the  clouds  of 
melancholy  and  of  self-distrust  lour  darkest — on  every 
page  of  this  book.  A  Hght  shines  in  it,  like  that  of 
"  cowslips  wet  with  the  dew  of  their  birth."  If  one 
viii 


word  could  tell  of  his  all,  that  word  would  be  England. 
"The  Manor  Farm,"  "The  Mill-Water,"  "  Adlestrop," 
"  Roads,"  "  The  GaUows,''  "  Lob,"  "  If  I  should  ever 
by  Chance,"  "The  Mountain  Chapel,"  "An  Old 
Song  " — it  is  foolish  to  catalogue — but  their  word  is 
England  ;  and  if  music  and  natural  magic  are  not 
the  very  essence  of  such  poems  as  "  The  Unknown 
Bird,"  "  The  Child  on  the  Cliffs,"  "  The  Wood," 
"  Beauty,"  "  Snow,"  "  The  Brook,"  "  Out  in  the 
Dark,"  then  I  have  never  even  guessed  the  meaning 
of  the  phrase.  When,  indeed,  Edward  Thomas  was 
killed  in  Flanders,  a  mirror  of  England  was  shattered 
of  so  pure  and  true  a  crystal  that  a  clearer  and 
tenderer  reflection  can  be  found  no  other  where  than 
in  these  poems  ;  neither  in  "  Clare  and  Cobbett, 
Morland  and  Crome,"  nor  among  the  living,  to  whom 
he  was  devoted,  in  Hardy,  Hudson,  Doughty.  Eng- 
land's roads  and  heaths  and  woods,  its  secret  haunts 
and  solitudes,  its  houses,  its  people — themselves  re- 
sembling its  thorns  and  juniper — its  very  flints  and 
dust,  were  his  freedom  and  his  peace.  He  pierced  to 
their  being,  not  through  dreams,  or  rhapsodies,  not  in 
the  strange  lights  of  fantasy,  rarely  with  the  vision 
that  makes  of  them  a  transient  veil  of  the  unseen. 
They  were  to  him  "  lovelier  than  any  mysteries." 
"  To  say  '  God  bless  it,'  was  all  that  I  could  do." 

There    is    nothing    precious,    elaborate,    brilliant, 
esoteric,  obscure  in  his  work.     The  feeling  is  never 
"  fine,"  the  thought  never  curious,  or  the  word  far- 
A  ix 


fetched.  Loose-woven,  monotonous,  unrelieved,  the 
verse,  as  verse,  may  appear  to  a  careless  reader  accus- 
tomed to  the  customary.  It  must  be  read  slowly,  as 
naturally  as  if  it  were  prose,  without  emphasis  ;  then 
it  will  surrender  himself,  his  beautiful  world,  his  com- 
passionate and  suffering  heart,  his  fine,  lucid,  grave 
and  sensitive  mind.  This  is  not  a  poetry  that  will 
drug  or  intoxicate,  civicise  or  edify — in  the  usual 
meaning  of  the  word,  though  it  rebuilds  reality.  It 
ennobles  by  simplification.  Above  all,  it  will  reveal 
what  a  friend  this  man  was  to  the  friendless  and  to 
them  of  small  report,  though  not  always  his  own 
serenest  friend — to  the  greening  stoat  on  the  game- 
keeper's shed,  the  weed  by  the  wayside,  the  wanderer, 
"  soldiers  and  poor  unable  to  rejoice."  "  If  we 
could  see  all,  all  might  seem  good." 

These  poems,  moreover,  differ  from  most  poems, 
not  only  because  they  are  usually  the  quietest  of  self- 
communions.  They  tell  also,  not  so  much  of  rare, 
exalted,  chosen  moments,  of  fleeting  inexplicable 
intuitions,  but  of  Thomas's  daily  and,  one  might  say, 
common  experience.  They  proceed  from  a  saturation, 
like  that  of  Gideon's  fleece;  from  contemplation  rather 
than  from  sheer  energy  of  insight.  They  are  not  drops 
of  attar  in  a  crystal  vase,  inestimably  precious  though 
such  drops  and  vessels  may  be.  Long-looking,  long- 
desiring,  long-loving — these  win  at  last  to  the  inmost 
being  of  a  thing.  So  it  was  with  Edward  Thomas. 
Like  every  other  individual  writer,  he  had  unlearned 

X 


all  literary  influences.  The  anxious  and  long-suffering 
labourer  was  worthy  of  his  belated  hire,  and  this 
volume  is  a  crockful  of  the  purest  hidden  waters  of 
his  life. 

Reading  it,  every  friend  Thomas  had  must  be 
conscious — though  none  more  desperately  than  I — 
of  an  inexpressible  regret  that  so  much  more  was  his 
to  give  if  richer  opportunity  had  been  taken  and  a 
more  selfless  receptivity  had  been  that  friend's  to 
offer.  Every  remembrance  of  him  brings  back  his 
company  to  me  with  a  gladness  never  untinged  by  this 
remorse.  For  to  be  alone  with  him  was  a  touchstone 
of  everything  artificial  and  shallow,  of  everything 
sweet  and  natural  in  the  world  in  which  we  lived. 
One  could  learn  and  learn  from  him  not  the  mere 
knowledge  of  the  living  things  and  scenes  around  us 
which  were  as  familiar  to  him  as  his  own  handwriting, 
but  of  their  life  in  himself.  He  never  contemned  any 
man's  ignorance  unless  it  was  pompous  or  prosperous, 
and  mine,  I  can  vouch,  gave  him  ample  opportunity. 

We  met  for  the  first  time — one  still,  blue,  darkening 
summer  evening — in  a  placecuriouslyuncharacteristic, 
one  of  the  back  streets  of  the  City  of  London,  to  him 
far  rather  the  astonishing  wen  than  the  hub  of  God's 
universe.  The  streets  were  already  deserted.  I  was 
first  at  the  tryst,  and  presently  out  of  a  neighbouring 
court  echoed  that  peculiarly  leisurely  footfall,  and  his 
figure  appeared  in  the  twilight.  Gulhver  himself  could 
hardly  have  looked  a  stranger  phenomenon  in  Lilhput 
xi 


than  he  appeared  in  Real-Turtle-Soup-Land — his 
clothes,  his  gait,  his  face,  his  bearing.  We  sat  and 
talked,  the  dams  down,  in  a  stale  underground  city 
cafe,  until  the  tactful  waitresses  piled  chairs  on  the 
marble-topped  tables  around  us  as  a  tacit  hint  that  we 
might  outstay  our  welcome. 

No  portrait  was  ever  made  of  him,  I  think,  by  any 
artist  less  indifferent  than  the  camera.  But  how 
vivid  is  his  likeness  in  remembrance  !  His  face  was 
fair,  long  and  rather  narrow,  and  in  its  customary 
gravity  wore  an  expression  rather  distant  and  de- 
tached. There  was  a  glint  of  gold  in  his  sun-baked 
hair.  The  eyes,  long-lashed  and  stooping  a  little  be- 
neath the  full,  rounded  lids,  were  of  a  clear  dark  blue  : 


I 


Some  eyes  condemn  the  earth  they  gaze  upon  : 
Some  wait  patiently  tOl  tliey  know  far  more 
Than  earth  can  tell  them.  .   .  . 


The  lips  were  finely  lined  and  wide,  the  chin  square. 
The  shoes  were  to  his  stature  ;  the  hands  that  had 
cradled  so  many  wild  birds'  eggs,  and  were  familiar 
with  every  flower  in  the  Southern  counties,  were  power- 
ful and  bony  ;  the  gestures  few  ;  the  frame  vigorous  : 

"  You  had  a  garden 

Of  flint  and  clay,  too  ?  "    "  True  ;   that  was  real  enough. 

The  flint  was  the  one  crop  that  never  failed. 

The  clay  first  broke  my  hetirt,  and  then  my  back  ; 

And  the  back  heals  not.  .  .  ." 

The   smile   was   whimsical,   stealthy,   shy,  ardent, 
mocking,  ironical  by  turns.  Thomas  seldom  laughed — ■ 


"  When  he  should  laugh  the  wise  man  knows  full  well. 
For  he  knows  what  is  truly  laughable."  The  voice 
was  low  and  monotonous,  with  a  curious  sweetness 
and  hollowness  when  he  sang  his  old  Welsh  songs  to 
his  children.  I  have  never  heard  English  used  so 
fastidiously  and  yet  so  unaffectedly  as  in  his  talk. 
Style  in  talk,  indeed,  is  a  rare  charm  ;  and  it  was 
his.  You  could  listen  to  it  for  its  own  sake,  just  as 
for  its  style  you  can  read  a  book.  He  must  have 
thought  like  that ;  like  that  he  felt.  There  were 
things  and  people,  blind,  callous,  indifferent,  veneered, 
destructive,  he  hated,  because  he  loved  life,  loved  to 
talk  about  it,  rare  and  racy,  old  and  charactered. 
He  might  avoid,  did  avoid,  what  intimidated,  chilled, 
or  made  him  self-conscious  ;  he  never  condescended. 
So  children  and  the  aged,  the  unfriended  and  the  free 
were  as  natural  and  welcome  to  him  as  swallows 
under  the  eaves. 

His  learning  was  of  men  and  things  at  first  hand 
rather  than  of  facts  at  second  and  third  ;  of  books 
in  his  kind  rather  than  of  indoor  arts  and  "  literature." 
What  he  gave  to  a  friend  in  his  company  was  not  only 
himself,  but  that  friend's  self  made  infinitely  less 
clumsy  and  shallow  than  usual,  and  at  ease.  To  be 
with  him  in  the  country  was  to  be  in  one's  own  native 
place,  and  even  a  Cockney's  starven  roots  may  thirst 
for  the  soil.  Nobody  like  him  was  in  this  world  that 
I  have  ever  had  the  happiness  to  meet  :  others  of  his 
friends  have  said  the  same.  So  when  he  died,  a  ghost 
xiii 


of  one's  self  went  away  with  him  ;  though  it  is  not  a 
mere  deceit  of  the  consciousness  that  makes  the  dead 
more  real  and  clear  in  their  isolation,  and  in  that 
loving  remembrance  which  as  time  goes  on  in  our 
experience  of  the  world  must  number  them,  not 
among  the  few,  but  among  the  many. 

The  only  justification  for  this  preface  to  his  poems 
is  its  attempt,  however  shght  and  partial,  to  portray 
their  writer  as  he  was  to  one  who  knew  him  in  his 
personal  life.  Close  criticism  of  them — of  their  art 
and  craftsmanship — would  be  as  superfluous  as  the 
full  appreciation  it  would  be  so  difficult  a  delight  to 
try  to  express.  But  when  it  is  considered  how  long 
and  dihgently,  and  at  what  expense  of  spirit,  Edward 
Thomas  worked  as  a  man  of  letters  ;  how  many  books 
are  his  ;  how  much  of  his  best  writing  is  practically 
lost  in  the  newspapers  that  so  swiftly  seduce  the  dead 
past  into  burying  its  dead  ;  then  it  is  httle  less  than 
tragic  to  think  how  comparatively  unheeded  in  any 
public  sense  was  his  coming  and  going.  Nevertheless, 
it  is  a  pious  duty  to  have  confidence  in  the  children  of 
this  and  of  succeeding  generations.  Thomas  has  true 
lovers  to-day  ;  but  when  the  noise  of  the  present  is 
silenced — and  the  drums  and  tramplings  of  the  war  in 
which  he  died — his  voice  will  be  heard  far  more  clearly; 
the  words  of  a  heart  and  mind  devoted  throughout  his 
life  to  all  that  can  make  the  world  a  decent  and  natural 
home  for  the  meek  and  the  lovely,  the  true,  the  rare, 
the  patient,  the  independent  and  the  oppressed. 

Walter   de    la   Mare. 


Contents 


The  Trumpet 

The  Sign-post 

Tears 

Two  Pewits 

The  Manor  Farm 

The  Owl 

Swedes 

Will  you  come  ? 

As    THE    team's    head-brass 

Thaw  .... 

Interval     . 

Like  the  touch  of  rain 

The  Path    . 

The  Combe 

If  I  should  ever  by  chance 

What  shall  I  give  ? 

If  I  WERE  TO  own 

And  you,  Helen 

When  first 

Head  and  Bottle 

After  you  speak 

Sowing 

When  we  two  walked 

In  Memoriam   (Easter,  191 5) 

Fifty  Faggots     . 

Women  he  liked 

XV 


2 

4 

5 

C6 

7 


13 
14 
16 

17 
18 

19 
20 
21 

23 
24 

25 
26 
27 
28 
29 
30 
31 


Early  one  morning 

The  Cherry  Trees 

It  rains 

The  Huxter 

A  Gentleman 

The  Bridge 

Lob 

Bright  Clouds 

The  clouds  that  are 

Some  eyes  condemn 

May  23 

The  Glory 

Melancholy 

Adlestrop  . 

The  Green  Roads 

The  Mill-pond    . 

It  was  upon 

Tall  Nettles 

Haymaking 

How  at  once 

Gone,  gone  again 

The  sun  used  to  shin 

October 

The  long  small  room 

Liberty 

November 

The  Sheiling 

The  Gallows 

Birds'  Nests 


so  light 


Rain 

73 

"Home" 

74 

There's  nothing  like  the  sun    . 

76 

When  he  should  laugh 

11 

^N  Old  Song       ..... 

78 

The  Penny  Whistle    .... 

80 

Lights  Out 

81 

Cock-crow  .         ,          .          .          .         . 

.       83 

Words          ...... 

84 

Up  in  the  Wind          .... 

87 

I  never  saw  that  land  before 

92 

The  Dark  Forest        .... 

94 

Celandine   ...... 

95 

The  Ash  Grove  ..... 

96 

Pld  Man      ...... 

97 

^The  Thrush 

99 

I    BUILT    MYSELF    A    HOUSE    OF    GLASS 

lOI 

February  Afternoon 

102 

Digging        ...... 

103 

;Two  Houses         ..... 

104 

The  Mill-water            .... 

106 

A  Dream 

108 

Sedge-warblers  ..... 

109 

Under  the  Woods       .... 

III 

What  will  they  do  ? 

113 

'To-night      ...... 

114 

A  Cat 

115 

The  Unknown 

116 

Song   .          

118 

She  dotes   . 

For  These  . 

March  the  Third 

The  New  House 

March 

The  Cuckoo 

Over  the  Hills 

Home  .... 

The  Hollow  Wood 

Wind  and  Mist  . 

The  Unknown  Bird     . 

The  Lofty  Sky  . 

After  Rain 

Digging 

But  these  things  also 

April  .... 

The  Barn 

The  Barn  and  the  Down 

The  Child  on  the  Cliffs 

Good-night. 

The  Wasp  Trap 

July    . 

A  Tale 

Parting 

Lovers 

That  girl's  clear  eyes 

The  Child  in  the  Orchard 

The  Source 

The  Mountain  Chapel 

XVlll 


First  known  when  lost 

155 

The  Word 

156 

These  things  that  poets  said     . 

157 

Home  ...... 

158 

Aspens          

159 

An  Old  Song       .          .          .          . 

160 

There  was  a  Time 

162 

Ambition      .... 

163 

No  one  cares  less  than  I 

164 

Roads           .... 

165 

This  is  no  case  of  petty  right 

OR    V 

vronc 

J     168 

The  Chalk-pit     . 

169 

Health         .... 

172 

Beauty         .... 

174 

Snow  ..... 

175 

The  New  Year   . 

•      176 

The  Brook. 

.      177 

The  Other 

•      179 

House  and  Man 

.      184 

The  Gypsy  .... 

.      185 

Man  and  Dog 

.      187 

A  Private  .... 

.      189 

Out  in  the  Dark 

.      190 

The  Trumpet 


Rise  up,  rise  up, 

And,  as  the  trumpet  blowing 

Chases  the  dreams  of  men, 

As  the  dawn  glowing 

The  stars  that  left  unlit 

The  land  and  water, 

Rise  up  and  scatter 

The  dew  that  covers 

The  print  of  last  night's  lovers — 

Scatter  it,  scatter  it  ! 

While  you  are  Hstening 

To  the  clear  horn, 

Forget,  men,  everything 

On  this  earth  newborn. 

Except  that  it  is  lovelier 

Than  any  mysteries. 

Open  your  eyes  to  the  air 

That  has  washed  the  eyes  of  the  stars 

Through  all  the  dewy  night  : 

Up  with  the  hght. 

To  the  old  wars  ; 

Arise,  arise  ! 


The  Sign-Post 


The  dim  sea  glints  chill.     The  white  sun  is  shy, 

And  the  skeleton  weeds  and  the  never-dry, 

Rough,  long  grasses  keep  white  with  frost 

At  the  hilltop  by  the  finger-post  ; 

The  smoke  of  the  traveller's-joy  is  puffed 

Over  hawthorn  berry  and  hazel  tuft. 

I  read  the  sign.     Which  way  shall  I  go  ? 

A  voice  says  :   You  would  not  have  doubted  so 

At  twenty.     Another  voice  gentle  with  scorn 

Says  :  At  twenty  you  wished  you  had  never  been  born. 

One  hazel  lost  a  leaf  of  gold 
From  a  tuft  at  the  tip,  when  the  first  voice  told 
The  other  he  wished  to  know  what  'twould  be 
To  be  sixty  by  this  same  post.     "  You  shall  see," 
He  laughed — and  I  had  to  join  his  laughter — 
*'  You  shall  see  ;   but  either  before  or  after. 
Whatever  happens,  it  must  befall, 
A  mouthful  of  earth  to  remedy  all 
Regrets  and  wishes  shall  freely  be  given  ; 
And  if  there  be  a  flaw  in  that  heaven 
'Twill  be  freedom  to  wish,  and  your  wish  may  be 
To  be  here  or  anywhere  talking  to  me, 
No  matter  what  the  weather,  on  earth. 
At  any  age  between  death  and  birth, — 
To  see  what  day  or  night  can  be, 
2 


The  sun  and  the  frost,  the  land  and  the  sea, 

Summer,  Autumn,  Winter,  Spring, — 

With  a  poor  man  of  any  sort,  down  to  a  king. 

Standing  upright  out  in  the  air 

Wondering  where  he  shall  journey,  O  where  ? 


Tears 


It  seems  I  have  no  tears  left.     They  should  have 

fallen — 
Their  ghosts,  if  tears  have  ghosts,  did  fall — that  day 
When    twenty    hounds    streamed    by    me,    not    yet 

combed  out 
But  still  all  equals  in  their  rage  of  gladness 
Upon  the  scent,  made  one,  Hke  a  great  dragon 
In  Blooming  Meadow  that  bends  towards  the  sun 
And  once  bore  hops  :    and  on  that  other  day 
When  I  stepped  out  from  the  double-shadowed  Tower 
Into  an  April  morning,  stirring  and  sweet 
And  warm.     Strange  solitude  was  there  and  silence. 
A  mightier  charm  than  any  in  the  Tower 
Possessed    the    courtyard.     They    were    changing 

guard. 
Soldiers  in  line,  young  Enghsh  countrymen. 
Fair-haired  and  ruddy,  in  white  tunics.     Drums 
And  fifes  were  playing  "  The  British  Grenadiers." 
The  men,  the  music  piercing  that  sohtude 
And  silence,  told  me  truths  I  had  not  dreamed. 
And  have  forgotten  since  their  beauty  passed. 


Two  Pev9its 


Under  the  after-sunset  sky 

Two  pewits  sport  and  cry, 

More  white  than  is  the  moon  on  high 

Riding  the  dark  surge  silently  ; 

More  black  than  earth.     Their  cry 

Is  the  one  sound  under  the  sky. 

They  alone  move,  now  low,  now  high, 

And  merrily  they  cry 

To  the  mischievous  Spring  sky, 

Plunging  earthward,  tossing  high. 

Over  the  ghost  who  wonders  why 

So  merrily  they  cry  and  fly, 

Nor  choose  'twixt  earth  and  sky, 

While  the  moon's  quarter  silently 

Rides,  and  earth  rests  as  silently. 


The   Manor  Farm 


The  rock-like  mud  unfroze  a  little  and  rills 

Ran  and  sparkled  down  each  side  of  the  road 

Under  the  catkins  wagging  in  the  hedge. 

But  earth  would  have  her  sleep  out,  spite  of  the  sun  ; 

Nor  did  I  value  that  thin  gilding  beam 

More  than  a  pretty  February  thing 

Till  I  came  down  to  the  old  Manor  Farm, 

And  church  and  yew-tree  opposite,  in  age 

Its  equals  and  in  size.     The  church  and  yew 

And  farmhouse  slept  in  a  Sunday  silentness. 

The  air  raised  not  a  straw.     The  steep  farm  roof. 

With  tiles  duskily  glowing,  entertained 

The  mid-day  sun  ;  and  up  and  down  the  roof 

White  pigeons  nestled.     There  was  no  sound  but  one. 

Three  cart-horses  were  looking  over  a  gate 

Drowsily  through  their  forelocks,  swishing  their  tails 

Against  a  fly,  a  solitary  fly. 

The  Winter's  cheek  flushed  as  if  he  had  drained 
Spring,  Summer,  and  Autumn  at  a  draught 
And  smiled  quietly.     But  'twas  not  Winter — 
Rather  a  season  of  bliss  unchangeable 
Awakened  from  farm  and  church  where  it  had  lain 
Safe  under  tile  and  thatch  for  ages  since 
This  England,  Old  already,  was  called  Merry. 


The   Owl 


Downhill  I  came,  hungry,  and  yet  not  starved  ; 
Cold,  yet  had  heat  within  me  that  was  proof 
Against  the  North  wind  ;  tired,  yet  so  that  rest 
Had  seemed  the  sweetest  thing  under  a  roof. 

Then  at  the  inn  I  had  food,  fire,  and  rest, 
Knowing  how  hungry,  cold,  and  tired  was  I. 
All  of  the  night  was  quite  barred  out  except 
An  owl's  cry,  a  most  melancholy  cry 

Shaken  out  long  and  clear  upon  the  hill, 
No  merry  note,  nor  cause  of  merriment, 
But  one  telling  me  plain  what  I  escaped 
And  others  could  not,  that  night,  as  in  I  went. 

And  salted  was  my  food,  and  my  repose. 
Salted  and  sobered,  too,  by  the  bird's  voice 
Speaking  for  all  who  lay  under  the  stars, 
Soldiers  and  poor,  unable  to  rejoice. 


Swedes 


They  have  taken  the  gable  from  the  roof  of  clay- 
On  the  long  swede  pile.     They  have  let  in  the  sun 
To  the  white  and  gold  and  purple  of  curled  fronds 
Unsunned.     It  is  a  sight  more  tender-gorgeous 
At  the  wood-corner  where  Winter  moans  and  drips 
Than  when,  in  the  Valley  of  the  Tombs  of  Kings, 
A  boy  crawls  down  into  a  Pharaoh's  tomb 
And,  first  of  Christian  men,  beholds  the  mummy, 
God  and  monkey,  chariot  and  throne  and  vase, 
Blue  pottery,  alabaster,  and  gold. 

But  dreamless  long-dead  Amen-hotep  lies. 
This  is  a  dream  of  Winter,  sweet  as  Spring. 


Will  You  Come  ? 


Will  you  come  ? 

Will  you  come  ? 

Will  you  ride 

So  late 

At  my  side  ? 

O,  will  you  come  ? 

Will  you  come  ? 
Will  you  come 
If  the  night 
Has  a  moon, 
Full  and  bright  ? 
O,  will  you  come  ? 

Would  you  come  ? 

Would  you  come 

If  the  noon 

Gave  light, 

Not  the  moon  ? 

Beautiful,  would  you  come  ? 

Would  you  have  come  ? 
Would  you  have  come 
Without  scorning. 
Had  it  been 
9 


Still  morning  ? 

Beloved,  would  you  have  come  ? 

If  you  come 

Haste  and  come 

Owls  have  cried  ; 

It  grows  dark 

To  ride. 

Beloved,  beautiful,  come. 


As  the  Teams  Head-Brass 


As  the  team's  head-brass  flashed  out  on  the  turn 
The  lovers  disappeared  into  the  wood. 
I  sat  among  the  boughs  of  the  fallen  elm 
That  strewed  an  angle  of  the  fallow,  and 
Watched  the  plough  narrowing  a  yellow  square 
Of  charlock.     Every  time  the  horses  turned 
Instead  of  treading  me  down,  the  ploughman  leaned 
Upon  the  handles  to  say  or  ask  a  word. 
About  the  weather,  next  about  the  war. 
Scraping  the  share  he  faced  towards  the  wood, 
And  screwed  along  the  furrow  till  the  brass  flashed 
Once  more. 

The  blizzard  felled  the  elm  whose  crest 
I  sat  in,  by  a  woodpecker's  round  hole, 
The  ploughman  said.  "When  will  they  take  it  away  ?" 
"  When  the  war's  over."     So  the  talk  began — 
One  minute  and  an  interval  of  ten, 
A  minute  more  and  the  same  interval. 
"  Have  you  been  out  ?  "     "  No."     "  And  don't  want 

to,  perhaps  ?  " 
"  If  I  could  only  come  back  again,  I  should. 
I  could  spare  an  arm.     I  shouldn't  want  to  lose 
A  leg.     If  I  should  lose  my  head,  why,  so, 
I  should  want  nothing  more.  .  .  .  Have  many  gone 
From    here  ?  "     "  Yes."     "  Many     lost  ?  "     "  Yes  : 

good  few. 

II 


Only  two  teams  work  on  the  farm  this  year. 

One  of  my  mates  is  dead.     The  second  day 

In  France  they  killed  him.     It  was  back  in  March, 

The  very  night  of  the  bhzzard,  too.     Now  if 

He  had  stayed  here  we  should  have  moved  the  tree." 

*'  And  I  should  not  have  sat  here.     Everything 

Would  have  been  different.     For  it  would  have  been 

Another  world."     "  Ay,  and  a  better,  though 

If  we  could  see  all  all  might  seem  good."     Then 

The  lovers  came  out  of  the  wood  again  : 

The  horses  started  and  for  the  last  time 

I  watched  the  clods  crumble  and  topple  over 

After  the  ploughshare  and  the  stumbling  team. 


12 


Thaw 


Over  the  land  freckled  with  snow  half-thawed 
The  speculating  rooks  at  their  nests  cawed 
And  saw  from  elm-tops,  delicate  as  flower  of  grass, 
What  we  below  could  not  see,  Winter  pass. 


13 


Interval 


Gone  the  wild  day  : 
A  wilder  night 
Coming  makes  way 
For  brief  twiHght. 

Where  the  firm  soaked  road 
Mounts  and  is  lost 
In  the  high  beech-wood 
It  shines  almost. 

The  beeches  keep 
A  stormy  rest, 
Breathing  deep 
Of  wind  from  the  west. 

The  wood  is  black, 
With  a  misty  steam. 
Above,  the  cloud  pack 
Breaks  for  one  gleam. 

But  the  woodman's  cot 
By  the  ivied  trees 
Awakens  not 
To  light  or  breeze. 


It  smokes  aloft 
Unwavering  : 
It  hunches  soft 
Under  storm's  wing. 

It  has  no  care 
For  gleam  or  gloom  : 
It  stays  there 
While  I  shall  roam, 

Die,  and  forget 
The  hill  of  trees, 
The  gleam,  the  wet. 
This  roaring  peace. 


15 


Like  the  Touch  of  Rain 


Like  the  touch  of  rain  she  was 
On  a  man's  flesh  and  hair  and  eyes 
When  the  joy  of  walking  thus 
Has  taken  him  by  surprise  : 

With  the  love  of  the  storm  he  burns^ 
He  sings,  he  laughs,  well  I  know  how, 
But  forgets  when  he  returns 
As  I  shall  not  forget  her  "  Go  now." 

Those  two  words  shut  a  door 
Between  me  and  the  blessed  rain 
That  was  never  shut  before 
And  will  not  open  again. 


i6 


The  Path 


Running  along  a  bank,  a  parapet 

That  saves  from  the  precipitous  wood  below 

The  level  road,  there  is  a  path.     It  serves 

Children  for  looking  down  the  long  smooth  steep. 

Between  the  legs  of  beech  and  yew,  to  where 

A  fallen  tree  checks  the  sight :  while  men  and  women 

Content  themselves  with  the  road  and  what  they  see 

Over  the  bank,  and  what  the  children  tell. 

The  path,  winding  hke  silver,  trickles  on, 

Bordered  and  even  invaded  by  thinnest  moss 

That  tries  to  cover  roots  and  crumbling  chalk 

With  gold,  olive,  and  emerald,  but  in  vain. 

The  cliildren  wear  it.     They  have  flattened  the  bank 

On  top,  and  silvered  it  between  the  moss 

With  the  current  of  their  feet,  year  after  year. 

But  the  road  is  houseless,  and  leads  not  to  school. 

To  see  a  child  is  rare  there,  and  the  eye 

Has  but  the  road,  the  wood  that  overhangs 

And  underyawns  it,  and  the  path  that  looks 

As  if  it  led  on  to  some  legendary 

Or  fancied  place  where  men  have  wished  to  go 

And  stay ;   till,  sudden,  it  ends  where  the  wood  ends. 


17 


The  Combe 


The  Combe  was  ever  dark,  ancient  and  dark. 

Its  mouth  is  stopped  with  bramble,  thorn,  and  briar  ; 

And  no  one  scrambles  over  the  sliding  chalk 

By  beech  and  yew  and  perishing  juniper 

Down  the  half  precipices  of  its  sides,  with  roots 

And  rabbit  holes  for  steps.     The  sun  of  Winter, 

The  moon  of  Summer,  and  all  the  singing  birds 

Except  the  missel-thrush  that  loves  juniper. 

Are  quite  shut  out.     But  far  more  ancient  and  dark 

The  Combe  looks  since  they  killed  the  badger  there, 

Dug  him  out  and  gave  him  to  the  hounds. 

That  most  ancient  Briton  of  English  beasts. 


i8 


If  I  Should  Ever  by  Chance 


If  I  should  ever  by  chance  grow  rich 

I'll  buy  Codham,  Cockridden,  and  Childerditch, 

Roses,  Pyrgo,  and  Lapwater, 

And  let  them  all  to  my  elder  daughter. 

The  rent  I  shall  ask  of  her  will  be  only 

Each  year's  first  violets,  white  and  lonely, 

The  first  primroses  and  orchises — 

She  must  find  them  before  I  do,  that  is. 

But  if  she  finds  a  blossom  on  furze 

Without  rent  they  shall  all  for  ever  be  hers, 

Codham,  Cockridden,  and  Childerditch, 

Roses,  Pyrgo  and  Lapwater, — 

I  shall  give  them  all  to  my  elder  daughter. 


19 


What  Shall  I  Give  f 


What  shall  I  give  my  daughter  the  younger 

More  than  will  keep  her  from  cold  and  hunger  ? 

I  shall  not  give  her  anything. 

If  she  shared  South  Weald  and  Havering, 

Their  acres,  the  two  brooks  running  between, 

Paine's  Brook  and  Weald  Brook, 

With  pewit,  woodpecker,  swan,  and  rook. 

She  would  be  no  richer  than  the  queen 

Who  once  on  a  time  sat  in  Havering  Bower 

Alone,  with  the  shadows,  pleasure  and  power. 

She  could  do  no  more  with  Samarcand, 

Or  the  mountains  of  a  mountain  land 

And  its  far  white  house  above  cottages 

Like  Venus  above  the  Pleiades. 

Her  small  hands  I  would  not  cumber 

With  so  many  acres  and  their  lumber. 

But  leave  her  Steep  and  her  own  world 

And  her  spectacled  self  with  hair  uncurled, 

Wanting  a  thousand  little  things 

That  time  without  contentment  brings. 


If  I  were  to  Own 


If  I  were  to  own  this  countryside 

As  far  as  a  man  in  a  day  could  ride, 

And  the  Tyes  were  mine  for  giving  or  letting,— 

Wingle  Tye  and  Margaretting 

Tye, — and  Skreens,  Gooshays,  and  Cockerells, 

Shellow,  Rochetts,  Bandish,  and  Pickerells, 

Martins,  Lambkins,  and  Lillyputs, 

Their  copses,  ponds,  roads,  and  ruts. 

Fields  where  plough-horses  steam  and  plovers 

FHng  and  whimper,  hedges  that  lovers 

Love,  and  orchards,  shrubberies,  walls 

Where  the  sun  untroubled  by  north  wind  falls. 

And  single  trees  where  the  thrush  sings  well 

His  proverbs  untranslatable, 

I  would  give  them  all  to  my  son 

If  he  would  let  me  any  one 

For  a  song,  a  blackbird's  song,  at  dawn. 

He  should  have  no  more,  till  on  my  lawn 

Never  a  one  was  left,  because  I 

Had  shot  them  to  put  them  into  a  pie,— 

His  Essex  blackbirds,  every  one. 

And  I  was  left  old  and  alone. 


Then  unless  I  could  pay,  for  rent,  a  song 
As  sweet  as  a  blackbird's,  and  as  long — ■ 

C  21 


No  more — he  should  have  the  house,  not  I : 

Margaretting  or  Wingle  Tye, 

Or  it  might  be  Skreens,  Gooshays,  or  Cockerells, 

Shellow,  Rochetts,  Bandish,  or  Pickerells, 

Martins,  Lambkins,  or  Lillyputs, 

Should  be  his  till  the  cart  tracks  had  no  ruts. 


And  YoUy  Helen 


And  you,  Helen,  what  should  I  give  you  ? 

So  many  things  I  would  give  you 

Had  I  an  infinite  great  store 

Offered  me  and  I  stood  before 

To  choose.     I  would  give  you  youth, 

All  kinds  of  loveliness  and  truth, 

A  clear  eye  as  good  as  mine, 

Lands,  waters,  flowers,  wine, 

As  many  children  as  your  heart 

Might  wish  for,  a  far  better  art 

Than  mine  can  be,  all  you  have  lost 

Upon  the  travelHng  waters  tossed, 

Or  given  to  me.     If  I  could  choose 

Freely  in  that  great  treasure-house 

Anything  from  any  shelf, 

I  would  give  you  back  yourself. 

And  power  to  discriminate 

What  you  want  and  want  it  not  too  late, 

Many  fair  days  free  from  care 

And  heart  to  enjoy  both  foul  and  fair, 

And  myself,  too,  if  I  could  find 

Where  it  lay  hidden  and  it  proved  kind. 


23 


When  First 


When  first  I  came  here  I  had  hope, 
Hope  for  I  knew  not  what.     Fast  beat 
My  heart  at  sight  of  the  tall  slope 
Of  grass  and  yews,  as  if  my  feet 

Only  by  scaling  its  steps  of  chalk 
Would  see  something  no  other  hill 
Ever  disclosed.     And  now  I  walk 
Down  it  the  last  time.     Never  will 

My  heart  beat  so  again  at  sight 

Of  any  hill  although  as  fair 

And  loftier.     For  infinite 

The  change,  late  unperceived,  this  year, 

The  twelfth,  suddenly,  shows  me  plain. 
Hope  now, — not  health,  nor  cheerfulness,. 
Since  they  can  come  and  go  again. 
As  often  one  brief  hour  witnesses, — 

Just  hope  has  gone  for  ever.     Perhaps 
I  may  love  other  hills  yet  more 
Than  this  :   the  future  and  the  maps 
Hide  something  I  was  waiting  for. 

One  thing  I  know,  that  love  with  chance 
And  use  and  time  and  necessity 
Will  grow,  and  louder  the  heart's  dance 
At  parting  than  at  meeting  be. 
24 


Head  and  Bottle 


The  downs  will  lose  the  sun,  white  alyssum 

Lose  the  bees'  hum  ; 

But  head  and  bottle  tilted  back  in  the  cart 

Will  never  part 

Till  I  am  cold  as  midnight  and  all  my  hours 

Are  beeless  flowers. 

He  neither  sees,  nor  hears,  nor  smells,  nor  thinks, 

But  only  drinks. 

Quiet  in  the  yard  where  tree  trunks  do  not  lie 

More  quietly. 


25 


After  Tou  Speak 


After  you  speak 
And  what  you  meant 
Is  plain, 
My  eyes 

Meet  yours  that  mean — 
With  your  cheeks  and  hair- 
Something  more  wise, 
More  dark. 
And  far  different. 
Even  so  the  lark 
Loves  dust 
And  nestles  in  it 
The  minute 
Before  he  must 
Soar  in  lone  flight 
So  far, 

Like  a  black  star 
He  seems — 
A  mote 

Of  singing  dust 
Afloat 
Above, 
That  dreams 
And  sheds  no  light. 
I  know  your  lust 
Is  love. 

26 


Sowing 


It  was  a  perfect  day 

For  sowing  ;   just 

As  sweet  and  dry  was  the  ground 

As  tobacco-dust. 

I  tasted  deep  the  hour 
Between  the  far 
Owl's  chuckling  first  soft>ry 
And  the  first  star. 

A  long  stretched  hour  it  was^; 
Nothing  undone 
Remained  ;   the  early  seeds 
All  safely  sown. 

And  now,  hark  at  the'rain, 
Windless  and  light, 
Half  a  kiss,  half  a  tear, 
Saying  good-night. 


27 


When  We  Two  Walked 


When  we  two  walked  in  Lent 
We  imagined  that  happiness 
Was  something  different 
And  this  was  something  less. 

But  happy  were  we  to  hide 
Our  happiness,  not  as  they  were 
Who  acted  in  their  pride 
Juno  and  Jupiter  : 

For  the  Gods  in  their  jealousy 
Murdered  that  wife  and  man, 
And  we  that  were  wise  live  free 
To  recall  our  happiness  then. 


28 


In  Memoriam  [Easter^  ^9^S) 

The  flowers  left  thick  at  nightfall  in  the  wood 

This  Eastertide  call  into  mind  the  men, 

Now  far  from  home,  who,  with  their  sweethearts, 

should 
Have  gathered  them  and  will  do  never  again. 


■    29 


Fifty  Faggots 


There  they  stand,  on  their  ends,  the  fifty  faggots 
That  once  were  underwood  of  hazel  and  ash 
In  Jenny  Pinks's  Copse.     Now,  by  the  hedge 
Close  packed,  they  make  a  thicket  fancy  alone 
Can  creep  through  with  the  mouse  and  wren.     Next 

Spring 
A  blackbird  or  a  robin  will  nest  there, 
Accustomed  to  them,  thinking  they  wiU  remain 
Whatever  is  for  ever  to  a  bird  : 
This  Spring  it  is  too  late  ;   the  swift  has  come. 
'Twas  a  hot  day  for  carrying  them  up  : 
Better  they  will  never  warm  me,  though  they  must 
Light  several  Winters'  fires.     Before  they  are  done 
The  war  will  have  ended,  many  other  things 
Have  ended,  maybe,  that  I  can  no  more 
Foresee  or  more  control  than  robin  and  wren. 


30 


Women  He  Liked 


Women  he  liked,  did  shovel-bearded  Bob, 
Old  Farmer  Hayward  of  the  Heath,  but  he 
Loved  horses.     He  himself  was  like  a  cob, 
And  leather-coloured.     Also  he  loved  a  tree. 

For  the  life  in  them  he  loved  most  living  things, 
But  a  tree  chiefly.     All  along  the  lane 
He  planted  elms  where  now  the  stormcock  sings 
That  travellers  hear  from  the  slow-climbing  train. 

Till  then  the  track  had  never  had  a  name 

For  all  its  thicket  and  the  nightingales 

That  should  have  earned  it.    No  one  was  to  blame. 

To  name  a  thing  beloved  man  sometimes  fails. 

Many  years  since.  Bob  Hayward  died,  and  now 
None  passes  there  because  the  mist  and  the  rain 
Out  of  the  elms  have  turned  the  lane  to  slough 
And  gloom,  the  name  alone  survives,  Bob's  Lane. 


Early  0?te  Morning 


Early  one  morning  in  May  I  set  out, 

And  nobody  I  knew  was  about. 
I'm  bound  away  for  ever, 
Away  somewhere,  away  for  ever. 

There  was  no  wind  to  trouble  the  weathercocks. 
I  had  burnt  my  letters  and  darned  my  socks. 

No  one  knew  I  was  going  away, 

I  thought  myself  I  should  come  back  some  day 

I  heard  the  brook  through  the  town  gardens  run. 

0  sweet  was  the  mud  turned  to  dust  by  the  sun. 

A  gate  banged  in  a  fence  and  banged  in  my  head. 
"  A  fine  morning,  sir,"  a  shepherd  said. 

1  could  not  return  from  my  liberty, 

To  my  youth  and  my  love  and  my  misery. 

The  past  is  the  only  dead  thing  that  smells  sweet, 
The  only  sweet  thing  that  is  not  also  fleet. 
I'm  bound  away  for  ever, 
Away  somewhere,  away  for  ever. 


32 


The  Cbej^ry  Trees 


The  cherry  trees  bend  over  and  are  shedding, 
On  the  old  road  where  all  that  passed  are  dead, 
Their  petals,  strewing  the  grass  as  for  a  wedding 
This  early  May  morn  when  there  is  none  to  wed. 


33 


//  Rains 


It  rains,  and  nothing  stirs  within  the  fence 
Anywhere  through  the  orchard's  untrodden,  dense 
Forest  of  parsley.      The  great  diamonds 
Of  rain  on  the  grassblades  there  is  none  to  break. 
Or  the  fallen  petals  further  down  to  shake. 

And  I  am  nearly  as  happy  as  possible 
To  search  the  wilderness  in  vain  though  well, 
To  think  of  two  walking,  kissing  there. 
Drenched,  yet  forgetting  the  kisses  of  the  rain  : 
Sad,  too,  to  think  that  never,  never  again, 

Unless  alone,  so  happy  shall  I  walk 
In  the  rain.     When  I  turn  away,  on  its  fine  stalk 
Twihght  has  fined  to  naught,  the  parsley  flower 
Figures,  suspended  still  and  ghostly  white. 
The  past  hovering  as  it  revisits  the  Hght. 


34 


The  Huxter 


He  has  a  hump  like  an  ape  on  his  back  ; 
He  has  of  money  a  plentiful  lack  ; 
And  but  for  a  gay  coat  of  double  his  girth 
There  is  not  a  plainer  thing  on  the  earth 
This  fine  May  morning. 

But  the  huxter  has  a  bottle  of  beer  ; 
He  drives  a  cart  and  his  wife  sits  near 
Who  does  not  heed  his  lack  or  his  hump  ; 
And  they  laugh  as  down  the  lane  they  bump 
This  fine  May  morning. 


35 


A  Gentleman 


"  He  has  robbed  two  clubs.     The  judge  at  Sahsbury 
Can't  give  him  more  than  he  undoubtedly 
Deserves.     The     scoundrel !     Look     at     his     photo- 
graph ! 
A  lady-killer  !     Hanging's  too  good  by  half 
For  such  as  he."     So  said  the  stranger,  one 
With  crimes  yet  undiscovered  or  undone. 
But  at  the  inn  the  Gipsy  dame  began  : 
"  Now  he  was  what  I  call  a  gentleman. 
He  went  along  with  Carrie,  and  when  she 
Had  a  baby  he  paid  up  so  readily 
His  half  a  crown.     Just  like  him.     A  crown'd  have 

been 
More  like  him.     For  I  never  knew  him  mean. 
Oh  !    but  he  was  such  a  nice  gentleman.     Oh  ! 
Last  time  we  met  he  said  if  me  and  Joe 
Was  anywhere  near  we  must  be  sure  and  call. 
He  put  his  arms  around  our  Amos  all 
As  if  he  were  his  own  son.     I  pray  God 
Save  him  from  justice  !     Nicer  man  never  trod.'* 


36 


The  Bridge 


I  HAVE  come  a  long  way  to-day : 

On  a  strange  bridge  alone, 

Remembering  friends,  old  friends, 

I  rest,  without  smile  or  moan, 

As  they  remember  me  without  smile  or  moan. 

All  are  behind,  the  kind 
And  the  unkind  too,  no   more 
To-night  than  a  dream.     The  stream 
Runs  softly  yet  drowns  the  Past, 
The  dark-lit  stream  has  drowned  the  Future  and  the 
Past. 

I 

No  traveller  has  rest  more  blest 

Than  this  moment  brief  between 
Two  lives,  when  the  Night's  first  lights 
And  shades  hide  what  has  never  been, 
Things  goodher,  lovelier,  dearer,  than  will  be  or  have 
been. 


37 


Lob 


At  hawthorn-time  in  Wiltshire  travelling 

In  search  of  something  chance  would  never  bring, 

An  old  man's  face,  by  hfe  and  weather  cut 

And  coloured, — rough,  brown,  sweet  as  any  nut, — 

A  land  face,  sea-blue-eyed, — hung  in  my  mind 

When  I  had  left  him  many  a  mile  behind. 

All  he  said  was  :   "  Nobody  can't  stop  'ee.     It's 

A  footpath,  right  enough.     You  see  those  bits 

Of  mounds — that's  where  they  opened  up  the  barrows 

Sixty  years  since,  while  I  was  scaring  sparrows. 

They  thought  as  there  was  something  to  find  there, 

But  couldn't  find  it,  by  digging,  anywhere." 

To  turn  back  then  and  seek  him,  where  was  the  use  ? 
There    were    three    Manningfords, — Abbots,    Bohun, 

and  Bruce  : 
And  whether  Alton,  not  Manningford,  it  was. 
My  memory  could  not  decide,  because 
There  was  both  Alton  Barnes  and  Alton  Priors. 
All  had  their  churches,  graveyards,  farms,  and  byres, 
Lurking  to  one  side  up  the  paths  and  lanes. 
Seldom  well  seen  except  by  aeroplanes  ; 
And  when  bell  rang,  or  pigs  squealed,  or  cocks  crowed, 
Then  only  heard.     Ages  ago  the  road 
Approached.  The  people  stood  and  looked  and  turned. 
Nor  asked  it  to  come  nearer,  nor  yet  learned 
38 


To  move  out  there  and  dwell  in  all  men's  dust. 
And  yet  withal  they  shot  the  weathercock,  just 
Because  'twas  he  crowed  out  of  tune,  they  said  : 
So  now  the  copper  weathercock  is  dead. 
If  they  had  reaped  their  dandelions  and  sold 
Them  fairly,  they  could  have  afforded  gold. 

Many  years  passed,  and  I  went  back  again 

Among  those  villages,  and  looked  for  men 

Who  might  have  known  my  ancient.     He  himself 

Had  long  been  dead  or  laid  upon  the  shelf, 

I  thought.     One  man  I  asked  about  him  roared 

At  my  description  :    "  'Tis  old  Bottlesford 

He  means.  Bill."     But  another  said  :    "  Of  course, 

It  was  Jack  Button  up  at  the  White  Horse. 

He's  dead,  sir,  these  three  years."     This  lasted  till 

A  girl  proposed  Walker  of  Walker's  Hill, 

"  Old  Adam  Walker.     Adam's  Point  you'll  see 

Marked  on  the  maps." 

"  That  was  her  roguery," 
The  next  man  said.     He  was  a  squire's  son 
Who  loved  wild  bird  and  beast,  and  dog  and  gun 
For  killing  them.     He  had  loved  them  from  his  birth, 
One  with  another,  as  he  loved  the  earth. 
"  The  man  may  be  like  Button,  or  Walker,  or 
Like  Bottlesford,  that  you  want,  but  far  more 
He  sounds  like  one  I  saw  when  I  was  a  child. 
I  could  almost  swear  to  him.     The  man  was  wild 

39 


And  wandered.     His  home  was  where  he  was  free. 

Everybody  has  met  one  such  man  as  he. 

Does  he  keep  clear  old  paths  that  no  one  uses 

But  once  a  hfetime  when  he  loves  or  muses  ? 

He  is  English  as  this  gate,  these  flowers,  this  mire. 

And  when  at  eight  years  old  Lob-lie-by-the-fire 

Came  in  my  books,  this  was  the  man  I  saw. 

He  has  been  in  England  as  long  as  dove  and  daw, 

CalHng  the  wild  cherry  tree  the  merry  tree, 

The  rose  campion  Bridget-in-her-bravery  ; 

And  in  a  tender  mood  he,  as  I  guess, 

Christened  one  flower  Love-in-idleness, 

And  while  he  walked  from  Exeter  to  Leeds 

One  April  called  all  cuckoo-flowers  Milkmaids. 

From  him  old  herbal  Gerard  learnt,  as  a  boy. 

To  name  wild  clematis  the  Traveller's-joy. 

Our  blackbirds  sang  no  English  till  his  ear 

Told  him  they  called  his  Jan  Toy  '  Pretty  dear.' 

(She  was  Jan  Toy  the  Lucky,  who,  having  lost 

A  shilling,  and  found  a  penny  loaf,  rejoiced.) 

For  reasons  of  his  own  to  him  the  wren 

Is  Jenny  Footer.     Before  all  other  men 

'Twas  he  first    called    the    Hog's    Back    the    Hog's 

Back. 
That  Mother  Dunch's  Buttocks  should  not  lack 
Their  name  with  his  care.     He  too  could  explain 
Totteridge  and  Totterdown  and  Juggler's  Lane  : 
He  knows,  if  anyone.     Why  Tumbling  Bay, 
Inland  in  Kent,  is  called  so,  he  might  say. 
40 


"  But  little  he  says  compared  with  what  he  does. 

If  ever  a  sage  troubles  him  he  will  buzz 

Like  a  beehive  to  conclude  the  tedious  fray  : 

And  the  sage,  who  knows  all  languages,  runs  away. 

Yet  Lob  has  thirteen  hundred  names  for  a  fool, 

And  though  he  never  could  spare  time  for  school 

To  unteach  what  the  fox  so  well  expressed. 

On  biting  the  cock's  head  off, — Quietness  is  best, — 

He  can  talk  quite  as  well  as  anyone 

After  his  thinking  is  forgot  and  done. 

He  first  of  all  told  someone  else's  wife. 

For  a  farthing  she'd  skin  a  flint  and  spoil  a  knife 

Worth  sixpence  skinning  it.     She  heard  him  speak  : 

*  She  had  a  face  as  long  as  a  wet  week  ' 

Said  he,  telling  the  tale  in  after  years. 

With  blue  smock  and  with  gold  rings  in  his  ears. 

Sometimes  he  is  a  pedlar,  not  too  poor 

To  keep  his  wit.     This  is  tall  Tom  that  bore 

The  logs  in,  and  with  Shakespeare  in  the  hall 

Once  talked,  when  icicles  hung  by  the  wall. 

As  Heme  the  Hunter  he  has  known  hard  times. 

On  sleepless  nights  he  made  up  weather  rhymes 

Which  others  spoilt.    And,  Hob  being  then  his  name, 

He  kept  the  hog  that  thought  the  butcher  came 

To  bring  his  breakfast.     '  You  thought  wrong,'  said 

Hob. 
When  there  were  kings  in  Kent  this  very  Lob, 
Whose  sheep  grew  fat  and  he  himself  grew  merry. 
Wedded  the  king's  daughter  of  Canterbury  ; 
41 


For  he  alone,  unlike  squire,  lord,  and  king, 
Watched  a  night  by  her  without  slumbering ; 
He  kept  both  waking.     When  he  was  but  a  lad 
He  won  a  rich  man's  heiress,  deaf,  dumb,  and  sad. 
By  rousing  her  to  laugh  at  him.     He  carried 
His  donkey  on  his  back.     So  they  were  married. 
And  while  he  was  a  Httle  cobbler's  boy 
He  tricked  the  giant  coming  to  destroy 
Shrewsbury  by  flood.     '  And  how  far  is  it  yet  ?  ' 
The  giant  asked  in  passing.     '  I  forget ; 
But  see  these  shoes  I've  worn  out  on  the  road 
And  we're  not  there  yet.'     He  emptied  out  his  load 
Of  shoes  for  mending.    The  giant  let  fall  from  his  spade 
The  earth  for  damming  Severn,  and  thus  made 
The  Wrekin  hill ;    and  httle  Ercall  hill 
Rose  where  the  giant  scraped  his  boots.     While  still 
So  young,  our  Jack  was  chief  of  Gotham's  sages. 
But  long  before  he  could  have  been  wise,  ages 
EarHer  than  this,  while  he  grew  thick  and  strong 
And  ate  his  bacon,  or,  at  times,  sang  a  song 
And  merely  smelt  it,  as  Jack  the  giant-killer 
He  made  a  name.     He  too  ground  up  the  miller, 
The  Yorkshireman  who  ground  men's  bones  for  flour. 

"  Do  you  believe  Jack  dead  before  his  hour  ? 
Or  that  his  name  is  Walker,  or  Bottlesford, 
Or  Button,  a  mere  clown,  or  squire,  or  lord  ? 
The  man  you  saw, — Lob-He-by-the-fire,  Jack  Cade, 
Jack  Smith,  Jack  Moon,  poor  Jack  of  every  trade, 
42 


Young  Jack,  or  old  Jack,  or  Jack  What-d'ye-call. 
^  Jack-in-the-hedge,  or  Robin-run-by-the-wall, 
Robin  Hood,  Ragged  Robin,  lazy  Bob, 
One  of  the  lords  of  No  Man's  Land,  good  Lob, — 
Although  he  was  seen  dying  at  Waterloo, 
Hastings,  Agincourt,  and  Sedgemoor  too, — 
Lives  yet.     He  never  will  admit  he  is  dead 
Till  millers  cease  to  grind  men's  bones  for  bread. 
Not  till  our  weathercock  crows  once  again 
And  I  remove  my  house  out  of  the  lane 
On  to  the  road."     With  this  he  disappeared 
In  hazel  and  thorn  tangled  with  old-man's-beard. 
But  one  glimpse  of  his  back,  as  there  he  stood. 
Choosing  his  way,  proved  him  of  old  Jack's  blood. 
Young  Jack  perhaps,  and  now  a  Wiltshireman 
As  he  has  oft  been  since  his  days  began. 


43 


Bright  Clouds 


Bright  clouds  of  may 

Shade  half  the  pond. 

Beyond, 

All  but  one  bay 

Of  emerald 

Tall  reeds 

Like  criss-cross  bayonets 

Where  a  bird  once  called, 

Lies  bright  as  the  sun. 

No  one  heeds. 

The  light  wind  frets 

And  drifts  the  scum 

Of  may-blossom. 

Till  the  moorhen  calls 

Again 

Naught's  to  be  done 

By  birds  or  men. 

Still  the  may  falls. 


44 


The  Clouds  that  are  so  Light 


The  clouds  that  are  so  light, 
Beautiful,  swift,  and  bright. 
Cast  shadows  on  field  and  park 
Of  the  earth  that  is  so  dark, 

And  even  so  now,  light  one  ! 
Beautiful,  swift  and  bright  one  ! 
You  let  fall  on  a  heart  that  was  dark,  • 
Unillumined,  a  deeper  mark. 

But  clouds  would  have,  without  earth 
To  shadow,  far  less  worth  : 
Away  from  your  shadow  on  me 
Your  beauty  less  would  be, 

And  if  it  still  be  treasured 
An  age  hence,  it  shall  be  measured 
By  this  small  dark  spot 
Without  which  it  were  not. 


45 


Some  Syes  Condemn 


Some  eyes  condemn  the  earth  they  gaze  upon  : 
Some  wait  patiently  till  they  know  far  more 
Than  earth  can  tell  them  :    some  laugh  at  the  Avhole 
As  folly  of  another's  making  :   one 
I  knew  that  laughed  because  he  saw,  from  core 
To  rind,  not  one  thing  worth  the  laugh  his  soul 
Had  ready  at  waking  :    some  eyes  have  begun 
With  laughing  ;   some  stand  startled  at  the  door. 

Others,  too,  I  have  seen  rest,  question,  roll. 

Dance,  shoot.     And  many  I  have  loved  watching. 

Some 
I  could  not  take  my  eyes  from  till  they  turned 
And  loving  died.     I  had  not  found  my  goal 
But  thinking  of  your  eyes,  dear,  I  become 
Dumb  :   for  they  flamed,  and  it  was  me  they  burned. 


46 


May  23 


There  never  was  a  finer  day, 

And  never  will  be  while  May  is  May, — • 

The  third,  and  not  the  last  of  its  kind  ; 

But  though  fair  and  clear  the  two  behind 

Seemed  pursued  by  tempests  overpast ; 

And  the  morrow  with  fear  that  it  could  not  last 

Was  spoiled.     To-day  ere  the  stones  were  warm 

Five  minutes  of  thunderstorm 

Dashed  it  with  rain,  as  if  to  secure. 

By  one  tear,  its  beauty  the  luck  to  endure. 


At  mid-day  then  along  the  lane 
Old  Jack  Noman  appeared  again. 
Jaunty  and  old,  crooked  and  tall, 
And  stopped  and  grinned  at  me  over  the  wall, 
With  a  cowslip  bunch  in  his  button-hole 
And  one  in  his  cap.     Who  could  say  if  his  roll 
Came  from  flints  in  the  road,  the  weather,  or  ale  ? 
He  was  welcome  as  the  nightingale. 
Not  an  hour  of  the  sun  had  been  wasted  on  Jack. 
"  I've  got  my  Indian  complexion  back," 
Said  he.     He  was  tanned  like  a  harvester. 
Like  his  short  clay  pipe,  like  the  leaf  and  bur 
That  clung  to  his  coat  from  last  night's  bed, 
Like  the  ploughland  crumbling  red. 
47 


Fairer  flowers  were  none  on  the  earth 

Than  his  cowslips  wet  with  the  dew  of  their  birth, 

Or  fresher  leaves  than  the  cress  in  his  basket. 

"  Where    did    they    come    from,    Jack  ?  "     "  Don't 

ask  it, 
And  you'll  be  told  no  lies."     "  Very  well : 
Then  I  can't  buy."     "  I  don't  want  to  sell. 
Take  them  and  these  flowers,  too,  free. 
Perhaps  you  have  something  to  give  me  ? 
Wait  till  next  time.     The  better  the  day  .  .  . 
The  Lord  couldn't  make  a  better,  I  say  ; 
If  he  could,  he  never  has  done." 
So  off  went  Jack  with  his  roll-walk-run. 
Leaving  his  cresses  from  Oakshott  rill 
And  his  cowshps  from  Wheatham  hill. 

'Twas  the  first  day  that  the  midges  bit ; 
But  though  they  bit  me,  I  was  glad  of  it : 
Of  the  dust  in  my  face,  too,  I  was  glad. 
Spring  could  do  nothing  to  make  me  sad. 
Bluebells  hid  all  the  ruts  in  the  copse, 
The  elm  seeds  lay  in  the  road  like  hops, 
That  fine  day.  May  the  twenty-third. 
The  day  Jack  Noman  disappeared. 


48 


The  Glory 


The  glory  of  the  beauty  of  the  morning, — 

The  cuckoo  crying  over  the  untouched  dew  ; 

The  blackbird  that  has  found  it,  and  the  dove 

That  tempts  me  on  to  something  sweeter  than  love  ; 

White  clouds  ranged  even  and  fair  as  new-mown  hay ; 

The  heat,  the  stir,  the  sublime  vacancy 

Of    sky   and    meadow    and    forest     and     my    own 

heart : — 
The  glory  invites  me,  yet  it  leaves  me  scorning 
All  I  can  ever  do,  all  I  can  be. 
Beside  the  lovely  of  motion,  shape,  and  hue. 
The  happiness  I  fancy  fit  to  dwell 
In  beauty's  presence.     Shall  I  now  this  day 
Begin  to  seek  as  far  as  heaven,  as  hell, 
Wisdom  or  strength  to  match  this  beauty,  start 
And    tread    the    pale  dust    pitted   with   small   dark 

drops, 
In  hope  to  find  whatever  it  is  I  seek. 
Hearkening  to  short-lived  happy-seeming  things 
That  we  know  naught  of,  in  the  hazel  copse  ? 
Or  must  I  be  content  with  discontent 
As  larks  and  swallows  are  perhaps  with  wings  ? 
And  shall  I  ask  at  the  day's  end  once  more 
What  beauty  is,  and  what  I  can  have  meant 
By  happiness  ?     And  shall  I  let  all  go. 
Glad,  weary,  or  both  ?     Or  shall  I  perhaps  know 
49 


That  I  was  happy  oft  and  oft  before, 
Awhile  forgetting  how  I  am  fast  pent, 
How  dreary-swift,  with  naught  to  travel  to. 
Is  Time  ?     I  cannot  bite  the  day  to  the  core. 


50 


Melancholy 


The  rain  and  wind,  the  rain  and  wind,  raved  end- 
lessly. 
On  me  the  Summer  storm,  and  fever,  and  melancholy 
Wrought  magic,  so  that  if  I  feared  the  solitude 
Far  more  I  feared  all  company :   too  sharp,  too  rude. 
Had  been  the  wisest  or  the  dearest  human  voice. 
What  I  desired  I  knew  not,  but  whate'er  my  choice 
Vain  it  must  be,  I  knew.     Yet  naught  did  my  despair 
But  sweeten  the  strange  sweetness,   while  through 

the  wild  air 
All  day  long  I  heard  a  distant  cuckoo  calling 
And,  soft  as  dulcimers,  sounds  of  near  water  falling, 
And,  softer,  and  remote  as  if  in  history, 
Rumours  of  what  had  touched  my  friends,  my  foes, 
or  me. 


SI 


A  die  strop 


Yes.     I  remember  Adlestrop — 
The  name,  because  one  afternoon 
Of  heat  the  express-train  drew  up  there 
Unwontedly.     It  was  late  June. 

The  steam  hissed.     Someone  cleared  his  throat. 

No  one  left  and  no  one  came 

On  the  bare  platform.     What  I  saw 

Was  Adlestrop — only  the  name 

And  willows,  willow-herb,  and  grass, 
And  meadowsweet,  and  haycocks  dry, 
No  whit  less  still  and  lonely  fair 
Than  the  high  cloudlets  in  the  sky. 

And  for  that  minute  a  blackbird  sang 
Close  by,  and  round  him,  mistier. 
Farther  and  farther,  all  the  birds 
Of  Oxfordshire  and  Gloucestershire. 


52 


The  Green  Roads 


The  green  roads  that  end  in  the  forest 

Are  strewn  with  white  goose  feathers  this  June, 

Like  marks  left  behind  by  someone  gone  to  the  forest 
To  show  his  track.     But  he  has  never  come  back. 

Down  each  green  road  a  cottage  looks  at  the  forest. 
Round  one  the  nettle  towers;  two  are  bathed  in  flowers. 

An  old  man  along  the  green  road  to  the  forest 
Strays  from  one,  from  another  a  child  alone. 

In  the  thicket  bordering  the  forest, 
All  day  long  a  thrush  twiddles  his  song. 

It  is  old,  but  the  trees  are  young  in  the  forest, 
All  but  one  Hke  a  castle  keep,  in  the  middle  deep. 

That  oak  saw  the  ages  pass  in  the  forest : 
They  were  a  host,  but  their  memories  are  lost, 

For  the  tree  is  dead  :    all  things  forget  the  forest 
Excepting  perhaps  me,  when  now  I  see 

The  old  man,  the  child,  the  goose  feathers   at   the 

edge  of  the  forest, 
And  hear  all  day  long  the  thrush  repeat  his  song. 

E  53 


The  Mia- Pond 


The  sun  blazed  while  the  thunder  yet 
Added  a  boom  : 
A  wagtail  flickered  bright  over 
The  mill-pond's  gloom  : 

Less  than  the  cooing  in  the  alder 

Isles  of  the  pool 

Sounded  the  thunder  through  that  plunge 

Of  waters  cool. 

Scared  starlings  on  the  aspen  tip 

Past  the  black  mill 

Outchattered  the  stream  and  the  next  roar 

Far  on  the  hill. 

As  my  feet  dangling  teased  the  foam 
That  slid  below 

A  girl  came  out.     "  Take  care  !  "   she  said- 
Ages  ago. 

She  startled  me,  standing  quite  close 
Dressed  all  in  white  : 
Ages  ago  I  was  angry  till 
She  passed  from  sight. 

Then  the  storm  burst,  and  as  I  crouched 
To  shelter,  how 

Beautiful  and  kind,  too,  she  seemed, 
As  she  does  now  ! 

54 


It  Was  Up 


on 


It  was  upon  a  July  evening. 

At  a  stile  I  stood,  looking  along  a  path 

Over  the  country  by  a  second  Spring 

Drenched  perfect  green  again.     "  The  lattermath 

Will  be  a  fine  one."     So  the  stranger  said, 

A  wandering  man.     Albeit  I  stood  at  rest. 

Flushed  with  desire  I  was.     The  earth  outspread. 

Like  meadows  of  the  future,  I  possessed. 

And  as  an  unaccomphshed  prophecy 

The  stranger's  words,  after  the  interval 

Of  a  score  years,  when  those  fields  are  by  me 

Never  to  be  recrossed,  now  I  recall, 

This  July  eve,  and  question,  wondering, 

What  of  the  lattermath  to  this  hoar  Spring  ? 


55 


Tall  Nettles 


Tall  nettles  cover  up,  as  they  have  done 
These  many  springs,  the  rusty  harrow,  the  plough 
Long  worn  out,  and  the  roller  made  of  stone  : 
Only  the  elm  butt  tops  the  nettles  now. 

This  corner  of  the  farmyard  I  like  most : 
As  well  as  any  bloom  upon  a  flower 
I  hke  the  dust  on  the  nettles,  never  lost 
Except  to  prove  the  sweetness  of  a  shower. 


56 


Haymaking 


After  night's  thunder  far  away  had  rolled 
The  fiery  day  had  a  kernel  sweet  of  cold, 
And  in  the  perfect  blue  the  clouds  uncurled, 
Like  the  first  gods  before  they  made  the  world 
And  misery,  swimming  the  stormless  sea 
In  beauty  and  in  divine  gaiety. 
The  smooth  white  empty  road  was  lightly  strewn 
With  leaves — the  holly's  Autumn  falls  in  June — 
And  fir  cones  standing  stiff  up  in  the  heat. 
The  mill-foot  water  tumbled  white  and  lit 
With  tossing  crystals,  happier  than  any  crowd 
Of  children  pouring  out  of  school  aloud. 
And  in  the  little  thickets  where  a  sleeper 
For  ever  might  lie  lost,  the  nettle-creeper 
And  garden  warbler  sang  unceasingly  ; 
While  over  them  shrill  shrieked  in  his  fierce  glee 
The  swift  with  wings  and  tail  as  sharp  and  narrow 
As  if  the  bow  had  flown  off  with  the  arrow. 
Only  the  scent  of  woodbine  and  hay  new-mown 
Travelled  the  road.     In  the  field  sloping  down. 
Park-like,  to  where  its  willows  showed  the  brook, 
Haymakers  rested.     The  tosser  lay  forsook 
Out  in  the  sun  ;   and  the  long  waggon  stood 
Without  its  team,  it  seemed  it  never  would 
Move  from  the  shadow  of  that  single  yew. 
The  team,  as  still,  until  their  task  was  due, 
57 


Beside  the  labourers  enjoyed  the  shade 
That  three  squat  oaks  mid-field  together  made 
Upon  a  circle  of  grass  and  weed  uncut, 
And  on  the  hollow,  once  a  chalk-pit,  but 
Now  brimmed  with  nut  and  elder-flower  so  clean. 
The  men  leaned  on  their  rakes,  about  to  begin, 
But  still.     And  all  were  silent.     All  was  old. 
This  morning  time,  with  a  great  age  untold. 
Older  than  Clare  and  Cobbett,  Morland  and  Crome, 
Than,  at  the  field's  far  edge,  the  farmer's  home, 
A  white  house  crouched  at  the  foot  of  a  great  tree. 
Under  the  heavens  that  know  not  what  years  be 
The  men,  the  beasts,  the  trees,  the  implements 
Uttered  even  what  they  will  in  times  far  hence — ■ 
All  of  us  gone  out  of  the  reach  of  change — 
Immortal  in  a  picture  of  an  old  grange. 


58 


How  at  Once 


How  at  once  should  I  know, 
When  stretched  in  the  harvest  blue 
I  saw  the  swift's  black  bow, 
That  I  would  not  have  that  view 
Another  day 
Until  next  May 
Again  it  is  due  ? 

The  same  year  after  year — 

But  with  the  swift  alone. 

With  other  things  I  but  fear 

That  they  will  be  over  and  done 

Suddenly 

And  I  only  see 

Them  to  know  them  gone. 


59 


Gone^  Gone  Again 


Gone,  gone  again, 
May,  June,  July, 
And  August  gone. 
Again  gone  by. 

Not  memorable 
Save  that  I  saw  them  go, 
As  past  the  empty  quays 
The  rivers  flow. 

And  now  again. 
In  the  harvest  rain. 
The  Blenheim  oranges 
Fall  grubby  from  the  trees. 

As  when  I  was  young — 
And  when  the  lost  one  was  her« 
And  when  the  war  began 
To  turn  young  men  to  dung. 

Look  at  the  old  house. 
Outmoded,  dignified. 
Dark  and  untenanted, 
With  grass  growing  instead 
60 


Of  the  footsteps  of  life, 
The  friendliness,  the  strife 
In  its  beds  have  lain 
Youth,  love,  age,  and  p 


am 


I  am  something  like  that ; 
Only  I  am  not  dead, 
Still  breathing  and  interested 
In  the  house  that  is  not  dark  : — 

I  am  something  like  that : 
Not  one  pane  to  reflect  the  sun, 
For  the  schoolboys  to  throw  at — 
They  have  broken  every  one. 


6i 


The  Sun  Used  to  Shine 


The  sun  used  to  shine  while  we  two  walked 
Slowly  together,  paused  and  started 
Again,  and  sometimes  mused,  sometimes  talked 
As  either  pleased,  and  cheerfully  parted 

Each  night.     We  never  disagreed 
Which  gate  to  rest  on.     The  to  be 
And  the  late  past  we  gave  small  heed. 
We  turned  from  men  or  poetry. 

To  rumours  of  the  war  remote 

Only  till  both  stood  disinchned 

For  aught  but  the  yellow  flavorous  coat 

Of  an  apple  wasps  had  undermined  ; 

Or  a  sentry  of  dark  betonies. 
The  stateliest  of  small  flowers  on  earth, 
At  the  forest  verge  ;   or  crocuses 
Pale  purple  as  if  they  had  their  birth 

In  sunless  Hades  fields.     The  war 
Came  back  to  mind  with  the  moonrise 
Which  soldiers  in  the  east  afar 
Beheld  then.     Nevertheless,  our  eyes 
62 


Could  as  well  imagine  the  Crusades 
Or  Caesar's  battles.     Everything 
To  faintness  like  those  rumours  fades — ■ 
Like  the  brook's  water  glittering 

Under  the  moonlight — like  those  walks 
Now — like  us  two  that  took  them,  and 
The  fallen  apples,  all  the  talks 
And  silences — like  memory's  sand 

When  the  tide  covers  it  late  or  soon,     • 
And  other  men  through  other  flowers 
In  those  fields  under  the  same  moon 
Go  talking  and  have  easy  hours. 


63 


October 


The  green  elm  with  the  one  great  bough  of  gold 

Lets  leaves  into  the  grass  shp,  one  by  one, — 

The  short  hill  grass,  the  mushrooms  small  milk-white, 

Harebell  and  scabious  and  tormentil. 

That  blackberry  and  gorse,  in  dew  and  sun, 

Bow  down  to  ;    and  the  wind  travels  too  light 

To  shake  the  fallen  birch  leaves  from  the  fern  ; 

The  gossamers  wander  at  their  own  will. 

At  heavier  steps  than  birds'  the  squirrels  scold. 

The  rich  scene  has  grown  fresh  again  and  new 

As  Spring  and  to  the  touch  is  not  more  cool 

Than  it  is  warm  to  the  gaze  ;   and  now  I  might 

As  happy  be  as  earth  is  beautiful. 

Were  I  some  other  or  with  earth  could  turn 

In  alternation  of  violet  and  rose, 

Harebell  and  snowdrop,  at  their  season  due, 

And  gorse  that  has  no  time  not  to  be  gay. 

But  if  this  be  not  happiness, — who  knows  ? 

Some  day  I  shall  think  this  a  happy  day, 

And  this  mood  by  the  name  of  melancholy 

Shall  no  more  blackened  and  obscured  be. 


64 


The  Long  Small  Room 


The  long  small  room  that  showed  willows  in  the  west 
Narrowed  up  to  the  end  the  fireplace  filled, 
Although  not  wide.     I  liked  it.     No  one  guessed 
What  need  or  accident  made  them  so  build. 

Only  the  moon,  the  mouse  and  the  sparrow  peeped 
In  from  the  ivy  round  the  casement  thick. 
Of  all  they  saw  and  heard  there  they  shall  keep 
The  tale  for  the  old  ivy  and  older  brick. 

When  I  look  back  I  am  hke  moon,  sparrow,  and  mouse 
That  witnessed  what  they  could  never  understand 
Or  alter  or  prevent  in  the  dark  house. 
One  thing  remains  the  same — this  my  right  hand 

CrawHng  crab-hke  over  the  clean  white  page, 
Resting  awhile  each  morning  on  the  pillow, 
Then  once  more  starting  to  crawl  on  towards  age. 
The  hundred  last  leaves  stream  upon  the  willow. 


65 


Liberty 


The  last  light  has  gone  out  of  the  world,  except 
This  moonlight  lying  on  the  grass  like  frost 
Beyond  the  brink  of  the  tall  elm's  shadow. 
It  is  as  if  everything  else  had  slept 
Many  an  age,  unforgotten  and  lost 
The  men  that  were,  the  things  done,  long  ago, 
All  I  have  thought ;   and  but  the  moon  and  I 
Live  yet  and  here  stand  idle  over  the  grave 
Where  all  is  buried.     Both  have  liberty 
To  dream  what  we  could  do  if  we  were  free 
To  do  something  we  had  desired  long, 
The  moon  and  I.     There's  none  less  free  than  who 
Does  nothing  and  has  nothing  else  to  do. 
Being  free  only  for  what  is  not  to  his  mind, 
And  nothing  is  to  his  mind.     If  every  hour 
Like  this  one  passing  that  I  have  spent  among 
The  wiser  others  when  I  have  forgot 
To  wonder  whether  I  was  free  or  not, 
Were  piled  before  me,  and  not  lost  behind, 
And  I  could  take  and  carry  them  away 
I  should  be  rich  ;   or  if  I  had  the  power 
To  wipe  out  everyone  and  not  again 
Regret,  I  should  be  rich  to  be  so  poor. 
And  yet  I  still  am  half  in  love  with  pain. 
With  what  is  imperfect,  with  both  tears  and  mirth. 
With  things  that  have  an  end,  with  Hfe  and  earth. 
And  this  moon  that  leaves  me  dark  within  the  door. 
66 


November 


November's  days  are  thirty  : 

November's  earth  is  dirty, 

Those  thirty  days,  from  first  to  last  ; 

And  the  prettiest  things  on  ground  are  the  paths 

With  morning  and  evening  hobnails  dinted. 

With  foot  and  wing-tip  overprinted 

Or  separately  charactered, 

Of  little  beast  and  Httle  bird. 

The  fields  are  mashed  by  sheep,  the  roads 

Make  the  worst  going,  the  best  the  woods 

Where  dead  leaves  upward  and  downward  scatter. 

Few  care  for  the  mixture  of  earth  and  water. 

Twig,  leaf,  flint,  thorn. 

Straw,  feather,  all  that  men  scorn, 

Pounded  up  and  sodden  by  flood, 

Condemned  as  mud. 


But  of  all  the  months  when  earth  is  greener 
Not  one  has  clean  skies  that  are  cleaner. 
Clean  and  clear  and  sweet  and  cold, 
They  shine  above  the  earth  so  old. 
While  the  after-tempest  cloud 
Sails  over  in  silence  though  winds  are  loud, 
Till  the  full  moon  in  the  east 
Looks  at  the  planet  in  the  west 
^1 


And  earth  is  silent  as  it  is  black, 

Yet  not  unhappy  for  its  lack. 

Up  from  the  dirty  earth  men  stare  : 

One  imagines  a  refuge  there 

Above  the  mud,  in  the  pure  bright 

Of  the  cloudless  heavenly  light  : 

Another  loves  earth  and  November  more  dearly 

Because  without  them,  he  sees  clearly. 

The  sky  would  be  nothing  more  to  his  eye 

Than  he,  in  any  case,  is  to  the  sky ; 

He  loves  even  the  mud  whose  dyes 

Renounce  all  brightness  to  the  skies. 


68 


The  Shelling 


It  stands  alone 

Up  in  a  land  of  stone 

All  worn  like  ancient  stairs, 

A  land  of  rocks  and  trees 

Nourished  on  wind  and  stone. 

And  aU  within 

Long  delicate  has  been  ; 

By  arts  and  kindliness 

Coloured,  sweetened,  and  warmed 

For  many  years  has  been. 

Safe  resting  there 
Men  hear  in  the  travelling  air 
But  music,  pictures  see 
In  the  same  daily  land 
Painted  by  the  wild  air. 

One  maker's  mind 
Made  both,  and  the  house  is  kind 
To  the  land  that  gave  it  peace. 
And  the  stone  has  taken  the  house 
To  its  cold  heart  and  is  kind. 


69 


The   Gallows 


There  was  a  weasel  lived  in  the  sun 

With  all  his  family, 

Till  a  keeper  shot  him  with  his  gun 

And  hung  him  up  on  a  tree, 

Where  he  swings  in  the  wind  and  rain, 

In  the  sun  and  in  the  snow, 

Without  pleasure,  without  pain, 

On  the  dead  oak  tree  bough. 

There  was  a  crow  who  was  no  sleeper. 

But  a  thief  and  a  murderer 

Till  a  very  late  hour  ;   and  this  keeper 

Made  him  one  of  the  things  that  were. 

To  hang  and  flap  in  rain  and  wind 

In  the  sun  and  in  the  snow. 

There  are  no  more  sins  to  be  sinned 

On  the  dead  oak  tree  bough. 

There  was  a  magpie,  too, 
Had  a  long  tongue  and  a  long  tail ; 
He  could  both  talk  and  do — 
But  what  did  that  avail  ? 
He,  too,  flaps  in  the  wind  and  rain 
Alongside  weasel  and  crow, 
Without  pleasure,  without  pain, 
On  the  dead  oak  tree  bough. 
70 


And  many  other  beasts 
And  birds,  skin,  bone,  and  feather, 
Have  been  taken  from  their  feasts 
And  hung  up  there  together. 
To  swing  and  have  endless  leisure 
In  the  sun  and  in  the  snow. 
Without  pain,  without  pleasure, 
On  the  dead  oak  tree  bough. 


71 


Birds^  Nests 


The  summer  nests  uncovered  by  autumn  wind, 
Some  torn,  others  dislodged,  all  dark, 
Everyone  sees  them  :   low  or  high  in  tree. 
Or  hedge,  or  single  bush,  they  hang  like  a  mark. 

Since  there's  no  need  of  eyes  to  see  them  with 

I  cannot  help  a  little  shame 

That  I  missed  most,  even  at  eye's  level,  till 

The  leaves  blew  off  and  made  the  seeing  no  game. 

'Tis  a  light  pang.     I  like  to  see  the  nests 

Still  in  their  places,  now  first  known, 

At  home  and  by  far  roads.     Boys  knew  them  not. 

Whatever  jays  and  squirrels  may  have  done. 

And  most  I  like  the  winter  nests  deep-hid 

That  leaves  and  berries  fell  into  : 

Once  a  dormouse  dined  there  on  hazel-nuts. 

And  grass  and  goose-grass  seeds  found  soil  and  grew. 


72 


R 


ain 


Rain,  midnight  rain,  nothing  but  the  wild  rain 
On  this  bleak  hut,  and  soHtude,  and  me 
Remembering  again  that  I  shall  die 
And  neither  hear  the  rain  nor  give  it  thanks 
For  washing  me  cleaner  than  I  have  been 
Since  I  was  born  into  this  solitude. 
Blessed  are  the  dead  that  the  rain  rains  upon  : 
But  here  I  pray  that  none  whom  once  I  loved 
Is  dying  to-night  or  lying  still  awake 
Solitary,  listening  to  the  rain. 
Either  in  pain  or  thus  in  sympathy 
Helpless  among  the  living  and  the  dead. 
Like  a  cold  water  among  broken  reeds, 
Myriads  of  broken  reeds  all  still  and  stiff, 
Like  me  who  have  no  love  which  this  wild  rain 
Has  not  dissolved  except  the  love  of  death, 
If  love  it  be  towards  what  is  perfect  and 
Cannot,  the  tempest  tells  me,  disappoint. 


73 


"  Home  " 


Fair  was  the  morning,  fair  our  tempers,  and 

We  had  seen  nothing  fairer  than  that  land. 

Though  strange,  and  the  untrodden  snow  that  made 

Wild  of  the  tame,  casting  out  all  that  was 

Not  wild  and  rustic  and  old  ;   and  we  were  glad. 

Fair,  too,  was  afternoon,  and  first  to  pass 

Were  we  that  league  of  snow,  next  the  north  wind. 

There  was  nothing  to  return  for,  except  need. 
And  yet  we  sang  nor  ever  stopped  for  speed. 
As  we  did  often  with  the  start  behind. 
Faster  still  strode  we  when  we  came  in  sight 
Of  the  cold  roofs  where  we  must  spend  the  night. 
Happy  we  had  not  been  there,  nor  could  be. 
Though  we  had  tasted  sleep  and  food  and  fellowship 
Together  long. 

"  How  quick,"  to  someone's  hp 
The  words  came,  "  will  the  beaten  horse  run  home !  " 

The  word  "  home  "  raised  a  smile  in  us  all  three. 
And  one  repeated  it,  smiHng  just  so 
That  all  knew  what  he  meant  and  none  would  say. 
Between  three  counties  far  apart  that  lay 
74 


We  were  divided  and  looked  strangely  each 
At  the  other,  and  we  knew  we  were  not  friends 
But  fellows  in  a  union  that  ends 
With  the  necessity  for  it,  as  it  ought. 

Never  a  word  was  spoken,  not  a  thought 

Was  thought,  of  what  the  look  meant  with  the  word 

"  Home "    as   we   walked    and   watched   the   sunset 

blurred. 
And  then  to  me  the  word,  only  the  word, 
"  Homesick,"  as  it  were  playfully  occurred  : 
No  more. 

If  I  should  ever  more  admit 
Than  the  mere  word  I  could  not  endure  it 
For  a  day  longer  :   this  captivity 
Must  somehow  come  to  an  end,  else  I  should  be 
Another  man,  as  often  now  I  seem, 
Or  this  life  be  only  an  evil  dream. 


75 


There  s   Nothing   Like   the  Sun 


There's  notking  like  the  sun  as  the  year  dies, 

Kind  as  it  can  be,  this  world  being  made  so, 

To  stones  and  men  and  beasts  and  birds  and  flies. 

To  all  things  that  it  touches  except  snow, 

Whether  on  mountain  side  or  street  of  town. 

The  south  wall  warms  me  :   November  has  begun, 

Yet  never  shone  the  sun  as  fair  as  now 

While  the  sweet  last-left  damsons  from  the  bough 

With  spangles  of  the  morning's  storm  drop  down 

Because  the  starling  shakes  it,  whistling  what 

Once  swallows  sang.     But  I  have  not  forgot 

That  there  is  nothing,  too,  Hke  March's  sun. 

Like  April's,  or  July's,  or  June's,  or  May's, 

Or  January's,  or  February's,  great  days  : 

And  August,  September,  October,  and  December 

Have  equal  days,  all  different  from  November. 

No  day  of  any  month  but  I  have  said — 

Or,  if  I  could  live  long  enough,  should  say — 

"  There's  nothing  hke  the  sun  that  shines  to-day.' 

There's  nothing  like  the  sun  till  we  are  dead. 


76 


When   He  Should  Laugh 


When  he  should  laugh  the  wise  man  knows  full  v.el 

For  he  knows  what  is  truly  laughable. 

But  wiser  is  the  man  who  laughs  also, 

Or  holds  his  laughter,  when  the  fooHsh  do. 


n 


An    Old  Song 


The  sun  set,  the  wind  fell,  the  sea 

Was  like  a  mirror  shaking  : 

The  one  small  wave  that  clapped  the  land 

A  mile-long  snake  of  foam  was  making 

Where  tide  had  smoothed  and  wind  had  dried 

The  vacant  sand. 

A  light  divided  the  swollen  clouds 
And  lay  most  perfectly- 
Like  a  straight  narrow  footbridge  bright 
That  crossed  over  the  sea  to  me  ; 
And  no  one  else  in  the  whole  world 
Saw  that  same  sight. 

I  walked  elate,  my  bridge  always 
Just  one  step  from  my  feet  : 
A  robin  sang,  a  shade  in  shade  : 
And  all  I  did  was  to  repeat : 
"  I'll  go  no  more  a-roving 
With  you,  fair  maid." 

The  sailors'  song  of  merry  loving 
With  dusk  and  sea-gull's  mewing 
Mixed  sweet,  the  lewdness  far  outweighed 
By  the  wild  charm  the  chorus  played  : 
78 


"  I'll  go  no  more  a-roving 

With  you,  fair  maid  : 

A-roving,  a-roving,  since  roving's  been  my  ruin. 

I'll  go  no  more  a-roving  with  you,  fair  maid." 

In  Amsterdam  there  dwelt  a  maid — 

Mark  well  what  I  do  say — 

In  Amsterdam  there  dwelt  a  maid 

And  she  was  a  mistress  of  her  trade  : 

ril  go  no  more  a-roving 

With  you,  fair  maid  : 

A-roving,  a-roving,  since  roving's  been  my  ruin, 

ril  go  no  more  a-roving  with  you,  fair  maid. 


79 


The   Penny   Whistle 


The  new  moon  hangs  like  an  ivory  bugle 
In  the  naked  frosty  blue  ; 

And  the  ghylls  of  the  forest,  already  blackened 
By  Winter,  are  blackened  anew. 

The  brooks  that  cut  up  and  increase  the  forest, 
As  if  they  had  never  known 
The  sun,  are  roaring  with  black  hollow  voices 
Betwixt  rage  and  a  moan. 

But  still  the  caravan-hut  by  the  hollies 

Like  a  kingfisher  gleams  between  : 

Round  the  mossed  old  hearths  of  the  charcoal-burners 

First  primroses  ask  to  be  seen. 

The  charcoal-burners  are  black,  but  their  hnen 
Blows  white  on  the  line  ; 
And  white  the  letter  the  girl  is  reading 
Under  that  crescent  fine  ; 

And  her  brother  who  hides  apart  in  a  thicket, 
Slowly  and  surely  playing 
On  a  whistle  an  olden  nursery  melody. 
Says  far  more  than  I  am  saying. 


80 


Lights   Out 


I  HAVE  come  to  the  borders  of  sleep, 

The  unfathomable  deep 

Forest  where  all  must  lose 

Their  way,  however  straight, 

Or  winding,  soon  or  late  ; 

They  cannot  choose. 

Many  a  road  and  track 

That,  since  the  dawn's  first  crack, 

Up  to  the  forest  brink. 

Deceived  the  travellers, 

Suddenly  now  blurs, 

And  in  they  sink. 

Here  love  ends. 
Despair,  ambition  ends, 
All  pleasure  and  all  trouble. 
Although  most  sweet  or  bitter, 
Here  ends  in  sleep  that  is  sweeter 
Than  tasks  most  noble. 

There  is  not  any  book 

Or  face  of  dearest  look 

That  I  would  not  turn  from  now 

To  go  into  the  unknown 

I  must  enter  and  leave  alone 

I  know  not  how. 


The  tall  forest  towers  ; 
Its  cloudy  foliage  lowers 
Ahead,  shelf  above  shelf  ; 
Its  silence  I  hear  and  obey 
That  I  may  lose  my  way 
And  myself. 


82 


Cock-Crow 


Out  of  the  wood  of  thoughts  that  grows  by  night 

To  be  cut  down  by  the  sharp  axe  of  hght, — 

Out  of  the  night,  two  cocks  together  crow, 

Cleaving  the  darkness  with  a  silver  blow  : 

And  bright  before  my  eyes  twin  trumpeters  stand. 

Heralds  of  splendour,  one  at  either  hand. 

Each  facing  each  as  in  a  coat  of  arms  : 

The  milkers  lace  their  boots  up  at  the  farms. 


83 


Words 


Out  of  us  all 

That  make  rhymes, 

Will  you  choose 

Sometimes — 

As  the  winds  use 

A  crack  in  a  wall 

Or  a  drain, 

Their  joy  or  their  pain 

To  whistle  through — 

Choose  me, 

You  English  words  ? 

I  know  you : 

You  are  light  as  dreams, 

Tough  as  oak. 

Precious  as  gold. 

As  poppies  and  corn, 

Or  an  old  cloak  ; 

Sweet  as  our  birds 

To  the  ear. 

As  the  burnet  rose 

In  the  heat 
Of  Midsummer  : 
Strange  as  the  races 
Of  dead  and  unborn  : 
84 


Strange  and  sweet 

Equally, 

And  familiar, 

To  the  eye, 

As  the  dearest  faces 

That  a  man  knows. 

And  as  lost  homes  are  : 

But  though  older  far 

Than  oldest  yew, — • 

As  our  hills  are,  old, — 

Worn  new 

Again  and  again  : 

Young  as  our  streams 

After  rain  : 

And  as  dear 

As  the  earth  which  you  prove 

That  we  love. 

Make  me  content 
With  some  sweetness 
From  Wales 
Whose  nightingales 
Have  no  wings, — 
From  Wiltshire  and  Kent 
And  Herefordshire, 
And  the  villages  there, — 
From  the  names,  and  the  things 
No  less. 

Let  me  sometimes  dance 
85 


With  you, 

Or  climb 

Or  stand  perchance 

In  ecstasy, 

Fixed  and  free 

In  a  rhyme, 

As  poets  do. 


86 


up   in   the   Wind 


"  I  COULD  wring  the  old  thing's  neck  that  put  it  here  ! 
A  public  house  !   it  may  be  pubHc  for  birds, 
Squirrels,  and  such-hke,  ghosts  of  charcoal-burners 
And  highwaymen."     The  wild  girl  laughed.     "  But  I 
Hate  it  since  I  came  back  from  Kennington. 
I  gave  up  a  good  place,"     Her  Cockney  accent 
Made  her  and  the  house  seem  wilder  by  calling  up — 
Only  to  be  subdued  at  once  by  wildness — 
The  idea  of  London,  there  in  that  forest  parlour, 
Low  and  small  among  the  towering  beeches, 
And  the  one  bulging  but  that's  like  a  font. 

Her  eyes  flashed  up  ;   she  shook  her  hair  away 
From  eyes  and  mouth,  as  if  to  shriek  again  ; 
Then  sighed  back  to  her  scrubbing.     While  I  drank 
I  might  have  mused  of  coaches  and  highwaymen. 
Charcoal-burners  and  life  that  loves  the  wild. 
For  who  now  used  these  roads  except  myself, 
A  market  waggon  every  other  Wednesday, 
A  solitary  tramp,  some  very  fresh  one 
Ignorant  of  these  eleven  houseless  miles, 
A  motorist  from  a  distance  slowing  down 
To  taste  whatever  luxury  he  can 
In  having  North  Downs  clear  behind,  South  clear  be- 
fore, 
And  being  midway  between  two  railway  lines, 
87 


Far  out  of  sight  or  sound  of  them  ?     There  are 
Some  houses — down  the  by-lanes  ;    and  a  few 
Are  visible — when  their  damsons  are  in  bloom. 
But  the  land  is  wild,  and  there's  a  spirit  of  wildness 
Much  older,  crying  when  the  stone-curlew  yodels 
His  sea  and  mountain  cry,  high  up  in  Spring. 
He  nests  in  fields  where  still  the  gorse  is  free  as 
When    all    was    open    and    common.     Common    'tis 

named 
And  calls  itself,  because  the  bracken  and  gorse 
Still  hold  the  hedge  where  plough  and  scythe  have 

chased  them. 
Once  on  a  time  'tis  plain  that  "  The  White  Horse  " 
Stood  merely  on  the  border  of  waste 
Where  horse  and  cart  picked  its  own  course  afresh. 
On  all  sides  then,  as  now,  paths  ran  to  the  inn  ; 
And  now  a  farm-track  takes  you  from  a  gate. 

Two  roads  cross,  and  not  a  house  in  sight 
Except  "  The  White  Horse  "  in  this  clump  of  beeches. 
It  hides  from  either  road,  a  field's  breadth  back  ; 
And  it's  the  trees  you  see,  and  not  the  house, 
Both  near  and  far,  when  the  clump's  the  highest 

thing 
And  homely,  too,  upon  a  far  horizon 
To  one  that  knows  there  is  an  inn  within. 

"  'Twould  have  been  different,"  the  wild  girl  shrieked, 
"  suppose 


That  widow  had  married  another  blacksmith  and 

Kept  on  the  business.    This  parlour  was  the  smithy. 

If  she  had  done,  there  might  never  have  been  an  inn  ; 

And  I,  in  that  case,  might  never  have  been  born. 

Years  ago,  when  this  was  all  a  wood 

And  the  smith  had  charcoal-burners  for  company, 

A  man  from  a  beech-country  in  the  shires 

Came  with  an  engine  and  a  little  boy 

(To  feed  the  engine)  to  cut  up  timber  here. 

It  all  happened  years  ago.     The  smith 

Had  died,  his  widow  had  set  up  an  alehouse — 

I  could  wring  the  old  thing's  neck  for  thinking  of  it. 

Well,  I  suppose  they  fell  in  love,  the  widow 

And  my  great-uncle  that  sawed  up  the  timber  : 

Leastways  they  married.     The  little  boy  stayed  on. 

He  was  my  father."     She  thought  she'd  scrub  again — 

"  I  draw  the  ale  and  he  grows  fat,"  she  muttered — 

But  only  studied  the  hollows  in  the  bricks 

And  chose  among  her  thoughts  in  stirring  silence. 

The  clock  ticked,  and  the  big  saucepan  lid 

Heaved  as  the  cabbage  bubbled,  and  the  girl 

Questioned  the  fire  and  spoke  :    "  My  father,  he 

Took  to  the  land.     A  mile  of  it  is  worth 

A  guinea  ;   for  by  the  time  all  trees 

Except  these  few  about  the  house  were  gone  : 

That's  all  that's  left  of  the  forest  unless  you  count 

The  bottoms  of  the  charcoal-burners'  fires — 

We  ploughed  one  up  at  times.     Did  you  ever  see 

Our  signboard  ?  "     No.     The  post  and  empty  frame 


I  knew.     Without  them  I  should  not  have  guessed 

The  low  grey  house  and  its  one  stack  under  trees 

Was  a  public  house  and  not  a  hermitage. 

"  But  can  that  empty  frame  be  any  use  ? 

Now  I  should  like  to  see  a  good  white  horse 

Swing  there,  a  really  beautiful  white  horse, 

Galloping  one  side,  being  painted  on  the  other." 

"  But  would  you  like  to  hear  it  swing  all  night 

And  all  day  ?     All  I  ever  had  to  thank 

The  wind  for  was  for  blowing  the  sign  down. 

Time  after  time  it  blew  down  and  I  could  sleep. 

At  last  they  fixed  it,  and  it  took  a  thief 

To  move  it,  and  we've  never  had  another  : 

It's  lying  at  the  bottom  of  the  pond. 

But  no  one's  moved  the  wood  from  off  the  hill 

There  at  the  back,  although  it  makes  a  noise 

When  the  wind  blows  ;   as  if  a  train  were  running 

The  other  side,  a  train  that  never  stops 

Or  ends.     And  the  linen  crackles  on  the  line 

Like  a  wood  fire  rising."     "  But  if  you  had  the  sign 

You  might  draw  company.     What  about  Kenning- 

ton  ?  " 
She  bent  down  to  her  scrubbing  with  "  Not  me  : 
Not  back  to  Kennington.     Here  I  was  born, 
And  I've  a  notion  on  these  windy  nights 
Here  I  shall  die.     Perhaps  I  want  to  die  here. 
I  reckon  I  shall  stay.     But  I  do  wish 
The  road  was  nearer  and  the  wind  farther  off. 
Or  once  now  and  then  quite  still,  though  when  I  die 
90 


I'd  have  it  blowing  that  I  might  go  with  it 
Somewhere  distant,  where  there  are  trees  no  more 
And  I  could  wake  and  not  know  where  I  was 
Nor  even  wonder  if  they  would  roar  again. 
Look  at  those  calves." 

Between  the  open  door 
And  the  trees  two  calves  were  wading  in  the  pond, 
Grazing  the  water  here  and  there  and  thinking, 
Sipping  and  thinking,  both  happily,  neither  long. 
The  water  wrinkled,  but  they  sipped  and  thought, 
As  careless  of  the  wind  as  it  of  us. 
"  Look  at  those  calves.     Hark  at  the  trees  again." 


91 


/  Never  Saw   that  Land  Before 


I  NEVER  saw  that  land  before, 
And  now  can  never  see  it  again  ; 
Yet,  as  if  by  acquaintance  hoar 
Endeared,  by  gladness  and  by  pain, 
Great  was  the  affection  that  I  bore 


To  the  valley  and  the  river  small, 
The  cattle,  the  grass,  the  bare  ash  trees, 
The  chickens  from  the  farmsreads,  all 
Elm-hidden,  and  the  tributaries 
Descending  at  equal  interval ; 


The  blackthorns  down  along  the  brook 
With  wounds  yellow  as  crocuses 
Where  yesterday  the  labourer's  hook 
Had  sHced  them  cleanly  ;   and  the  breeze 
That  hinted  all  and  nothing  spoke. 


I  neither  expected  anything 
Nor  yet  remembered  :   but  some  goal 
I  touched  then  ;   and  if  I  could  sing 
What  would  not  even  whisper  my  soul 
As  I  went  on  my  journeying, 
92 


\ 


I  should  use,  as  the  trees  and  birds  did, 
A  language  not  to  be  betrayed  ; 
And  what  was  hid  should  still  be  hid 
Excepting  from  those  like  me  made 
Who  answer  when  such  whispers  bid. 


93 


The   Dark   Forest 


Dark  is  the  forest  and  deep,  and  overhead 
Hang  stars  like  seeds  of  light 

In  vain,  though  not  since  they  were  sown  was  bred 
Anything  more  bright. 

And  evermore  mighty  multitudes  ride 
About,  nor  enter  in  ; 
Of  the  other  multitudes  that  dwell  inside 
Never  yet  was  one  seen. 

The  forest  foxglove  is  purple,  the  marguerite 
Outside  is  gold  and  white. 
Nor  can  those  that  pluck  either  blossom  greet 
The  others,  day  or  night. 


94 


Celandine 


Thinking  of  her  had  saddened  me  at  first, 
Until  I  saw  the  sun  on  the  celandines  lie 
Redoubled,  and  she  stood  up  like  a  flame, 
A  living  thing,  not  what  before  I  nursed. 
The  shadow  I  was  growing  to  love  almost. 
The  phantom,  not  the  creature  with  bright  eye 
That  I  had  thought  never  to  see,  once  lost. 

She  found  the  celandines  of  February 
Always  before  us  all.     Her  nature  and  name 
Were  like  those  flowers,  and  now  immediately 
For  a  short  swift  eternity  back  she  came, 
Beautiful,  happy,  simply  as  when  she  wore 
Her  brightest  bloom  among  the  winter  hues 
Of  all  the  world  ;   and  I  was  happy  too. 
Seeing  the  blossoms  and  the  maiden  who 
Had  seen  them  with  me  Februarys  before, 
Bending  to  them  as  in  and  out  she  trod 
And  laughed,  with  locks  sweeping  the  mossy  sod. 

But  this  was  a  dream  :   the  flowers  were  not  true. 

Until  I  stooped  to  pluck  from  the  grass  there 

One  of  five  petals  and  I  smelt  the  juice 

Which  made  me  sigh,  remembering  she  was  no  more> 

Gone  like  a  never  perfectly  recalled  air. 


95 


The   Ash   Grove 


Half  of  the  grove  stood  dead,  and  those  that  yet 

lived  made 
Little  more  than  the  dead  ones  made  of  shade. 
If  they  led  to  a  house,  long  before  they  had  seen  its 

fall: 
But  they  welcomed  me  ;    I  was  glad  without  cause 

and  delayed. 

Scarce   a   hundred   paces   under   the   trees   was   the 

interval — 
Paces  each  sweeter  than  sweetest  miles — but  nothing 

at  all, 
Not  even  the  spirits  of  memory  and  fear  with  restless 

wing. 
Could  cHmb  down  in  to  molest  me  over  the  wall 

That  I  passed  through  at  either  end  without  noticing. 
And  now  an  ash  grove  far  from  those  hills  can  bring 
The  same  tranquillity  in  which  I  wander  a  ghost 
With  a  ghostly  gladness,  as  if  I  heard  a  girl  sing 

The  song  of  the  Ash  Grove  soft  as  love  uncrossed. 
And  then  in  a  crowd  or  in  distance  it  were  lost. 
But  the  moment  unveiled  something  unwiUing  to  die 
And  I  had  what  most  I  desired,  without  search  or 
desert  or  cost. 


Old  Man 


Old  Man,  or  Lad's-love, — in  the  name  there's  nothing 
To  one  that  knows  not  Lad's-love,  or  Old  Man, 
The  hoar-green  feathery  herb,  almost  a  tree. 
Growing  with  rosemary  and  lavender. 
Even  to  one  that  knows  it  well,  the  names 
Half  decorate,  half  perplex,  the  thing  it  is  : 
At  least,  what  that  is  dings  not  to  the  names 
In  spite  of  time.     And  yet  I  like  the  names. 

The  herb  itself  I  Hke  not,  but  for  certain 
I  love  it,  as  some  day  the  child  will  love  it 
Who  plucks  a  feather  from  the  door-side  bush 
Whenever  she  goes  in  or  out  of  the  house. 
Often  she  waits  there,  snipping  the  tips  and  shrivel- 
ling 
The  shreds  at  last  on  to  the  path,  perhaps 
Thinking,  perhaps  of  nothing,  till  she  sniffs 
Her  fingers  and  runs  off.     The  bush  is  still 
But  half  as  tall  as  she,  though  it  is  as  old  ; 
So  well  she  clips  it.     Not  a  word  she  says  ; 
And  I  can  only  wonder  how  much  hereafter 
She  will  remember,  with  that  bitter  scent. 
Of  garden  rows,  and  ancient  damson  trees 
Topping  a  hedge,  a  bent  path  to  a  door, 
A  low  thick  bush  beside  the  door,  and  me 
Forbidding  her  to  pick. 

97 


As  for  myself, 
Where  first  I  met  the  bitter  scent  is  lost. 
I,  too,  often  shrivel  the  grey  shreds. 
Sniff  them  and  think  and  sniff  again  and  try 
Once  more  to  think  what  it  is  I  am  remembering, 
Always  in  vain.     I  cannot  like  the  scent, 
Yet  I  would  rather  give  up  others  more  sweet, 
With  no  meaning,  than  this  bitter  one. 

I  have  mislaid  the  key.     I  sniff  the  spray 
And  think  of  nothing  ;    I  see  and  I  hear  nothing  ; 
Yet  seem,  too,  to  be  listening,  lying  in  wait 
For  what  I  should,  yet  never  can,  remember  : 
No  garden  appears,  no  path,  no  hoar-green  bush 
Of  Lad's-love,  or  Old  Man,  no  child  beside, 
Neither  father  nor  mother,  nor  any  playmate ; 
Only  an  avenue,  dark,  nameless,  without  end. 


98 


The    Thrush 


When  Winter's  ahead, 

What  can  you  read  in  November 

That  you  read  in  April 

When  Winter's  dead  ? 

I  hear  the  thrush,  and  I  see 
Him  alone  at  the  end  of  the  lane 
Near  the  bare  poplar's  tip, 
Singing  continuously. 

Is  it  more  that  you  know 
Than  that,  even  as  in  April, 
So  in  November, 
Winter  is  gone  that  must  go  ? 

Or  is  all  your  lore 

Not  to  call  November  November, 

And  April  April, 

And  Winter  Winter— no  more  ? 


But  I  know  the  months  all. 
And  their  sweet  names,  April, 
May  and  June  and  October, 
As  you  call  and  call 
99 


I  must  remember 

What  died  in  April 

And  consider  what  will  be  born 

Of  a  fair  November  ; 

And  April  I  love  for  what 

It  was  born  of,  and  November 

For  what  it  will  die  in, 

What  they  are  and  what  they  are  not, 

While  you  love  what  is  kind, 
What  you  can  sing  in 
And  love  and  forget  in 
All  that's  ahead  and  behind. 


/  Built  Myself  a  House  of  Glass 


I  BUILT  myself  a  house  of  glass  : 

It  took  me  years  to  make  it : 

And  I  was  proud.     But  now,  alas ! 

Would  God  someone  would  break  it. 

But  it  looks  too  magnificent. 

No  neighbour  casts  a  stone 

From  where  he  dwells,  in  tenement 

Or  palace  of  glass,  alone. 


February  Afternoo72 


Men  heard  this  roar  of  parleying  starlings,  saw, 

A  thousand  years  ago  even  as  now. 

Black  rooks  with  white  gulls  following  the  plough 
So  that  the  first  are  last  until  a  caw 
Commands  that  last  are  first  again, — a  law 

Which  was  of  old  when  one,  like  me,  dreamed  how 

A  thousand  years  might  dust  lie  on  his  brow 
Yet  thus  would  birds  do  between  hedge  and  shaw. 

Time  swims  before  me,  making  as  a  day 

A  thousand  years,  while  the  broad  ploughland  oak 
Roars  mill-like  and  men  strike  and  bear  the  stroke 
Of  war  as  ever,  audacious  or  resigned. 

And  God  still  sits  aloft  in  the  array 

That  we  have  wrought  him,  stone-deaf  and  stone- 
bUnd. 


Digging 

What  matter  makes  my  spade  for  tears  or  mirth, 

Letting  down  two  clay  pipes  into  the  earth  ? 

The  one  I  smoked,  the  other  a  soldier 

Of  Blenheim,  Ramillies,  and  Malplaquet 

Perhaps.     The  dead  man's  immortahty 

Lies  represented  lightly  with  my  own, 

A  yard  or  two  nearer  the  living  air 

Than  bones  of  ancients  who,  amazed  to  see 

Almighty  God  erect  the  mastodon, 

Once  laughed,  or  wept,  in  this  same  light  of  day. 


103 


Two  Houses 


Between  a  sunny  bank  and  the  sun 

The  farmhouse  smiles 

On  the  riverside  plat : 

No  other  one 

So  pleasant  to  look  at 

And  remember,  for  many  miles, 

So  velvet  hushed  and  cool  under  the  warm  tiles. 

Not  far  from  the  road  it  lies,  yet  caught 

Far  out  of  reach 

Of  the  road's  dust 

And  the  dusty  thought 

Of  passers-by,  though  each 

Stops,  and  turns,  and  must 

Look  down  at  it  Hke  a  wasp  at  the  muslined  peach. 

But  another  house  stood  there  long  before  : 

And  as  if  above  graves 

Still  the  turf  heaves 

Above  its  stones  : 

Dark  hangs  the  sycamore, 

Shadowing  kennel  and  bones 

And  the  black  dog  that  shakes  his  chain  and  moans. 

And  when  he  barks,  over  the  river 
Flashing  fast, 

104 


Dark  echoes  reply, 

And  the  hollow  past 

Half  yields  the  dead  that  never 

More  than  half  hidden  lie  : 

And  out  they  creep  and  back  again  for  ever. 


105 


The  Mill-Water 


Only  the  sound  remains 

Of  the  old  miU  ; 

Gone  is  the  wheel ; 

On  the  prone  roof  and  walls  the  nettle  reigns. 

Water  that  toils  no  more 

Dangles  white  locks 

And,  falling,  mocks 

The  music  of  the  mill-wheel's  busy  roar. 

Pretty  to  see,  by  day 

Its  sound  is  naught 

Compared  with  thought 

And  talk  and  noise  of  labour  and  of  play. 

Night  makes  the  difference. 

In  calm  moonlight, 

Gloom  infinite, 

The  sound  comes  surging  in  upon  the  sense  : 

Solitude,  company, — 
When  it  is  night, — 
Grief  or  delight 

By  it  must  haunted  or  concluded  be. 
1 06 


Often  the  silentness 

Has  but  this  one 

Companion  ; 

Wherever  one  creeps  in  the  other  is  : 

Sometimes  a  thought  is  drowned 

By  it,  sometimes 

Out  of  it  climbs  ; 

All  thoughts  begin  or  end  upon  this  sound, 

Only  the  idle  foam 

Of  water  falling 

Changelessly  calling. 

Where  once  men  had  a  work-place  and  a  home. 


107 


A  Dream 


Over  known  fields  with  an  old  friend  in  dream 
I  walked,  but  came  sudden  to  a  strange  stream. 
Its  dark  waters  were  bursting  out  most  bright 
From  a  great  mountain's  heart  into  the  light. 
They  ran  a  short  course  under  the  sun,  then  back 
Into  a  pit  they  plunged,  once  more  as  black 
As  at  their  birth  ;   and  I  stood  thinking  there 
How  white,  had  the  day  shone  on  them,  they  were, 
Heaving  and  coiling.     So  by  the  roar  and  hiss 
And  by  the  mighty  motion  of  the  abyss 
I  was  bemused,  that  I  forgot  my  friend 
And  neither  saw  nor  sought  him  till  the  end, 
When  I  awoke  from  waters  unto  men 
Saying  :   "  I  shall  be  here  some  day  again." 


[o8 


Sedge-  JVa  rhle  rs 


This  beauty  made  me  dream  there  was  a  time 

Long  past  and  irrecoverable,  a  clime 

Where  any  brook  so  radiant  racing  clear 

Through  buttercup  and  kingcup  bright  as  brass 

But  gentle,  nourishing  the  meadow  grass 

That  leans  and  scurries  in  the  wind,  would  bear 

Another  beauty,  divine  and  feminine, 

Child  to  the  sun,  a  nymph  whose  soul  unstained 

Could  love  all  day,  and  never  hate  or  tire, 

A  lover  of  mortal  or  immortal  kin. 

And  yet,  rid  of  this  dream,  ere  I  had  drained 
Its  poison,  quieted  was  my  desire 
So  that  I  only  looked  into  the  water, 
Clearer  than  any  goddess  or  man's  daughter, 
And  hearkened  while  it  combed  the  dark  green  hair 
And  shook  the  millions  of  the  blossoms  white 
Of  water-crowfoot,  and  curdled  to  one  sheet 
The  flowers  fallen  from  the  chestnuts  in  the  park 
Far  off.     And  sedge-warblers,  clinging  so  light 
To  willow  twigs,  sang  longer  than  the  lark. 
Quick,  shrill,  or  grating,  a  song  to  match  the  heat 
Of  the  strong  sun,  nor  less  the  water's  cool, 
Gushing  through  narrows,  swirling  in  the  pool. 
Their  song  that  lacks  all  words,  all  melody, 
All  sweetness  almost,  was  dearer  then  to  me 
109 


Than  sweetest  voice  that  sings  in  tune  sweet  words. 
This  was  the  best  of  May — the  small  brown  birds 
Wisely  reiterating  endlessly 
What  no  man  learnt  yet,  in  or  out  of  school. 


1 10 


Under   the   Woods 


When  these  old  woods  were  young 
The  thrushes'  ancestors 
As  sweetly  sung 
In  the  old  years. 

There  was  no  garden  here, 
Apples  nor  mistletoe  ; 
No  children  dear 
Ran  to  and  fro. 

New  then  was  this  thatched  cot, 
But  the  keeper  was  old, 
And  he  had  not 
Much  lead  or  gold. 

Most  silent  beech  and  yew  : 
As  he  went  round  about 
The  woods  to  view 
Seldom  he  shot. 


But  now  that  he  is  gone 
Out  of  most  memories, 
Still  lingers  on, 
A  stoat  of  his, 

III 


But  one,  shrivelled  and  green, 
And  with  no  scent  at  all. 
And  barely  seen 
On  this  shed  wall. 


112 


What   Will  They  Do  f 


What  will  they  do  when  I  am  gone  ?     It  is  plain 
That  they  will  do  without  me  as  the  rain 
Can  do  without  the  flowers  and  the  grass 
That  profit  by  it  and  must  perish  without. 
I  have  but  seen  them  in  the  loud  street  pass  ; 
And  I  was  naught  to  them.     I  turned  about 
To  see  them  disappearing  carelessly. 
But  what  if  I  in  them  as  they  in  me 
Nourished  what  has  great  value  and  no  price  ? 
Almost  I  thought  that  rain  thirsts  for  a  draught 
Which  only  in  the  blossom's  chaHce  hes, 
Until  that  one  turned  back  and  lightly  laughed. 


113 


To-night 


Harry,  you  know  at  night 
The  larks  in  Castle  Alley- 
Sing  from  the  attic's  height 
As  if  the  electric  light 
Were  the  true  sun  above  a  summer  valley 
Whistle,  don't  knock,  to-night. 

I  shall  come  early,  Kate  : 

And  we  in  Castle  Alley 

Will  sit  close  out  of  sight 

Alone,  and  ask  no  light 

Of  lamp  or  sun  above  a  summer  valley  : 

To-night  I  can  stay  late. 


A  Cat 


She  had  a  name  among  the  children  ; 
But  no  one  loved  though  someone  owned 
Her,  locked  her  out  of  doors  at  bedtime 
And  had  her  kittens  duly  drowned. 

In  Spring,  nevertheless,  this  cat 

Ate  blackbirds,  thrushes,  nightingales, 

And  birds  of  bright  voice  and  plume  and  flight, 

As  well  as  scraps  from  neighbours'  pails. 

I  loathed  and  hated  her  for  this  ; 
One  speckle  on  a  thrush's  breast 
Was  worth  a  million  such  ;    and  yet 
She  lived  long,  till  God  gave  her  rest. 


''5 


The   Unknown 


She  is  most  fair, 

And  when  they  see  her  pass 

The  poets'  ladies 

Look  no  more  in  the  glass 

But  after  her. 

On  a  bleak  moor 
Running  under  the  moon 
She  lures  a  poet, 
Once  proud  or  happy,  soon 
Far  from  his  door. 

Beside  a  train, 
Because  they  saw  her  go, 
Or  failed  to  see  her. 
Travellers  and  watchers  know 
Another  pain. 

The  simple  lack 
Of  her  is  more  to  me 
Than  others'  presence. 
Whether  life  splendid  be 
Or  utter  black. 

I  have  not  seen, 
I  have  no  news  of  her  ; 
ii6 


I  can  tell  only 

She  is  not  here,  but  there 

She  might  have  been. 

She  is  to  be  kissed 
Only  perhaps  by  me  ; 
She  may  be  seeking 
Me  and  no  other  ;   she 
May  not  exist. 


Song 


At  poet's  tears, 

Sweeter  than  any  smiles  but  hers, 

She  laughs  ;   I  sigh  ; 

And  yet  I  could  not  live  if  she  should  die, 

A.nd  when  in  June 

Once  more  the  cuckoo  spoils  his  tune, 

She  laughs  at  sighs  ; 

And  yet  she  says  she  loves  me  till  she  dies 


i8 


She  Dotes 


She  dotes  on  what  the  wild  birds  say 
Or  hint  or  mock  at,  night  and  day, — 
Thrush,  blackbird,  all  that  sing  in  May, 

And  songless  plover. 
Hawk,  heron,  owl,  and  woodpecker. 
They  never  say  a  word  to  her 

About  her  lover. 

She  laughs  at  them  for  childishness, 
She  cries  at  them  for  carelessness 
Who  see  her  going  loverless 

Yet  sing  and  chatter 
Just  as  when  he  was  not  a  ghost. 
Nor  ever  ask  her  what  she  has  lost 

Or  what  is  the  matter. 

Yet  she  has  fancied  blackbirds  hide 
A  secret,  and  that  thrushes  chide 
Because  she  thinks  death  can  divide 

Her  from  her  lover  ; 
And  she  has  slept,  trying  to  translate 
The  word  the  cuckoo  cries  to  his  mate 

Over  and  over. 


119 


Thi 


'or   inese 


An  acre  of  land  between  the  shore  and  the  hills. 
Upon  a  ledge  that  shows  my  kingdoms  three, 
The  lovely  visible  earth  and  sky  and  sea. 
Where  what  the  curlew  needs  not,  the  farmer  tills 

A  house  that  shall  love  me  as  I  love  it. 
Well-hedged,  and  honoured  by  a  few  ash  trees 
That  linnets,  greenfinches,  and  goldfinches 
Shall  often  visit  and  make  love  in  and  flit  : 

A  garden  I  need  never  go  beyond. 

Broken  but  neat,  whose  sunflowers  every  one 

Are  fit  to  be  the  sign  of  the  Rising  Sun  : 

A  spring,  a  brook's  bend,  or  at  least  a  pond  : 

For  these  I  ask  not,  but,  neither  too  late 
Nor  yet  too  early,  for  what  men  call  content, 
And  also  that  something  may  be  sent 
To  be  contented  with,  I  ask  of  Fate. 


March   the    Third^ 

Here  again  (she  said)  is  March  the  third 
And  twelve  hours'  singing  for  the  bird 
'Twixt  dawn  and  dusk,  from  half-past  six 
To  half-past  six,  never  unheard. 

'Tis  Sunday,  and  the  church-bells  end 
When  the  birds  do.     I  think  they  blend 
Now  better  than  they  will  when  passed 
Is  this  unnamed,  unmarked  godsend. 

Or  do  all  mark,  and  none  dares  say. 
How  it  may  shift  and  long  delay. 
Somewhere  before  the  first  of  Spring, 
But  never  fails,  this  singing  day  ? 

And  when  it  falls  on  Sunday,  bells 
Are  a  wild  natural  voice  that  dwells 
On  hillsides  ;   but  the  birds'  songs  have 
The  hohness  gone  from  the  bells. 

This  day  unpromised  is  more  dear 
Than  all  the  named  days  of  the  year 
When  seasonable  sweets  come  in, 
Because  we  know  how  lucky  we  are. 
1  The  Author's  birthday. 


The  New   House 


Now  first,  as  I  shut  the  door, 

I  was  alone 
In  the  new  house  ;    and  the  wind 

Began  to  moan. 

Old  at  once  was  the  house, 

And  I  was  old  ; 
My  ears  were  teased  with  the  dread 

Of  what  was  foretold. 

Nights  of  storm,  days  of  mist,  without  end  ; 

Sad  days  when  the  sun 
Shone  in  vain  :   old  griefs  and  griefs 

Not  yet  begun. 

All  was  foretold  me  ;    naught 

Could  I  foresee  ; 
But  I  learned  how  the  wind  would  sound 

After  these  things  should  be. 


122 


March 


Now  I  know  that  Spring  will  come  again, 
Perhaps  to-morrow  :   however  late  I've  patience 
After  this  night  following  on  such  a  day. 

While  still  my  temples  ached  from  the  cold  burning 

Of  hail  and  wind,  and  still  the  primroses 

Torn  by  the  hail  were  covered  up  in  it. 

The  sun  filled  earth  and  heaven  with  a  great  light 

And  a  tenderness,   almost  warmth,   where  the  hail 

dripped, 
As  if  the  mighty  sun  wept  tears  of  joy. 
But  'twas  too  late  for  warmth.     The  sunset  piled 
Mountains  on  mountains  of  snow  and  ice  in  the  west : 
Somewhere  among  their  folds  the  wind  was  lost, 
And  yet  'twas  cold,  and  though  I  knew  that  Spring 
Would  come  again,  I  knew  it  had  not  come. 
That  it  was  lost  too  in  those  mountains  chill. 

What  did  the  thrushes  know  ?     Rain,  snow,  sleet, 

hail. 
Had  kept  them  quiet  as  the  primroses. 
They  had  but  an  hour  to  sing.     On  boughs  they  sang, 
On  gates,  on  ground  ;   they  sang  while  they  changed 

perches 
And  while  they  fought,  if  they  remembered  to  fight : 
So  earnest  were  they  to  pack  into  that  hour 
123 


Their  unwilling  hoard  of  song  before  the  moon 
Grew  brighter  than  the  clouds.     Then  'twas  no  time 
For  singing  merely.     So  they  could  keep  off  silence 
And    night,    they    cared    not    what    they    sang   or 

screamed  ; 
Whether  'twas  hoarse  or  sweet  or  fierce  or  soft ; 
And  to  me  all  was  sweet  :   they  could  do  no  wrong. 
Something  they  knew — I  also,  while  they  sang 
And  after.     Not  till  night  had  half  its  stars 
And  never  a  cloud,  was  I  aware  of  silence 
Stained  with  all  that  hour's  songs,  a  silence 
Saying  that  Spring  returns,  perhaps  to-morrow. 


[24 


DW 


The   Cuckoo 


That's  the  cuckoo,  you  say.     I  cannot  hear  it. 
When  last  I  heard  it  I  cannot  recall ;    but  I  kno^ 
Too  well  the  year  when  first  I  failed  to  hear  it — 
It   was   drowned   by  my  man   groaning  out   to   his 
sheep  "  Ho  !   Ho  !  " 

Ten  times  with  an  angry  voice  he  shouted 
"  Ho  !  Ho  !  "   but  not  in  anger,  for  that  was  his  way. 
He  died  that  Summer,  and  that  is  how  I  remember 
The  cuckoo  calling,  the  children  Hstening,   and  me 
saying,  "  Nay." 

And  now,  as  you  said,  "  There  it  is,"  I  was  hearing 
Not  the  cuckoo  at  all,  but  my  man's  "  Ho  !    Ho  !  " 

instead. 
And  I  think  that  even  if  I  could  lose  my  deafness 
The  cuckoo's  note  would  be  drowned  by  the  voice  of 

my  dead. 


Over  the  Hills 


Often  and  often  it  came  back  again 

To  mind,  the  day  I  passed  the  horizon  ridge 

To  a  new  country,  the  path  I  had  to  find 

By  half-gaps  that  were  stiles  once  in  the  hedge. 

The  pack  of  scarlet  clouds  running  across 

The  harvest  evening  that  seemed  endless  then 

And  after,  and  the  inn  where  all  were  kind, 

All  were  strangers.     I  did  not  know  my  loss 

Till  one  day  twelve  months  later  suddenly 

I  leaned  upon  my  spade  and  saw  it  all, 

Though  far  beyond  the  sky-line.     It  became 

Almost  a  habit  through  the  year  for  me 

To  lean  and  see  it  and  think  to  do  the  same 

Again  for  two  days  and  a  night.     Recall 

Was  vain  :    no  more  could  the  restless  brook 

Ever  turn  back  and  chmb  the  waterfall 

To  the  lake  that  rests  and  stirs  not  in  its  nook, 

As  in  the  hollow  of  the  collar-bone 

Under  the  mountain's  head  of  rush  and  stone. 


126 


Home 


Often  I  had  gone  this  way  before  : 
But  now  it  seemed  I  never  could  be 
And  never  had  been  anywhere  else  ; 
'Twas  home  ;   one  nationahty 
We  had,  I  and  the  birds  that  sang, 
One  memory. 

They  welcomed  me.     I  had  come  back 
That  eve  somehow  from  somevv'here  far  : 
The  April  mist,  the  chill,  the  calm. 
Meant  the  same  thing  familiar 
And  pleasant  to  us,  and  strange  too, 
Yet  with  no  bar. 

The  thrush  on  the  oaktop  in  the  lane 
Sang  his  last  song,  or  last  but  one  ; 
And  as  he  ended,  on  the  elm 
Another  had  but  just  begun 
His  last  ;   they  knew  no  more  than  I 
The  day  was  done. 

Then  past  his  dark  white  cottage  front 

A  labourer  went  along,  his  tread 

Slow,  half  with  weariness,  half  with  ease  ; 

And,  through  the  silence,  from  his  shed 

The  sound  of  sawing  rounded  all 

That  silence  said. 

127 


The  Hollow   Wood 


Out  in  the  sun  the  goldfinch  flits 
Along  the  thistle-tops,  flits  and  twits 
Above  the  hollow  wood 
Where  birds  swim  like  fish — 
Fish  that  laugh  and  shriek — 
To  and  fro,  far  below 
In  the  pale  hollow  wood. 

Lichen,  ivy,  and  moss 

Keep  evergreen  the  trees 

That  stand  half-flayed  and  dying, 

And  the  dead  trees  on  their  knees 

In  dog's-mercury  and  moss  : 

And  the  bright  twit  of  the  goldfinch  drops 

Down  there  as  he  flits  on  thistle-tops. 


28 


Wind  and  Mist 


They  met  inside  the  gateway  that  gives  the  view, 

A  hollow  land  as  vast  as  heaven.     "  It  is 

A  pleasant  day,  sir."     "  A  very  pleasant  day." 

"  And  what  a  view  here  !     If  you  like  angled  fields 

Of  grass  and  grain  bounded  by  oak  and  thorn, 

Here  is  a  league.     Had  we  with  Germany 

To  play  upon  this  board  it  could  not  be 

More  dear  than  April  has  made  it  with  a  smile. 

The  fields  beyond  that  league  close  in  together 

And  merge,  even  as  our  days  into  the  past, 

Into  one  wood  that  has  a  shining  pane 

Of  water.     Then  the  hills  of  the  horizon — 

That  is  how  I  should  make  hills  had  I  to  show 

One  who  would  never  see  them  what  hills  were  like." 

"  Yes.     Sixty  miles  of  South  Downs  at  one  glance. 

Sometimes  a  man  feels  proud  at  them,  as  if 

He  had  just  created  them  with  one  mighty  thought." 

"  That  house,  though  modern,  could  not  be  better 

planned 
For  its  position.     I  never  liked  a  new 
House  better.     Could  you  tell  me  who  lives  in  it  ?  " 
"  No  one."     "  Ah— and  I  was  peopling  all 
Those  windows  on  the  south  with  happy  eyes. 
The  terrace  under  them  with  happy  feet  ; 
Girls "     "  Sir,  I  know.     I  know.     I  have  seen 

that  house 

129 


Through  mist  look  lovely  as  a  castle  in  Spain, 

And  airier.     I  have  thought  :    '  'Twere  happy  there 

To  live.'     And  I  have  laughed  at  that 

Because  I  lived  there  then."     "  Extraordinary." 

"  Yes,  with  my  furniture  and  family 

Still  in  it,  I,  knowing  every  nook  of  it 

And  loving  none,  and  in  fact  hating  it." 

"  Dear  me  !     How  could  that  be  ?     But  pardon  me." 

"  No  offence.     Doubtless  the  house  was  not  to  blame, 

But  the  eye  watching  from  those  windows  saw, 

Many  a  day,  day  after  day,  mist — mist 

Like  chaos  surging  back — and  felt  itself 

Alone  in  all  the  world,  marooned  alone. 

We  lived  in  clouds,  on  a  cliff's  edge  almost 

(You  see),  and  if  clouds  went,  the  visible  earth 

Lay  too  far  off  beneath  and  like  a  cloud. 

I  did  not  know  it  was  the  earth  I  loved 

Until  I  tried  to  live  there  in  the  clouds 

And    the    earth    turned    to    cloud."     "  You    had    a 

garden 
Of   flint    and    clay,    too."     "  True  ;     that    was    real 

enough. 
The  flint  was  the  one  one  crop  that  never  failed. 
The  clay  first  broke  my  heart,  and  then  my  back  ; 
And  the  back  heals  not.     There  were  other  things 
Real,  too.     In  that  room  at  the  gable  a  child 
Was  born  while  the  wind  chilled  a  summer  dawn  : 
Never  looked  grey  mind  on  a  greyer  one 
Than  when  the  child's  cry  broke  above  the  groans." 
130 


*'  I    hope    they   were    both   spared."     "  They   were. 

Oh  yes  ! 
But  flint  and  clay  and  childbirth  were  too  real 
For  this  cloud-castle.     I  had  forgot  the  wind. 
Pray  do  not  let  me  get  on  to  the  wind. 
You  would  not  understand  about  the  wind. 
It  is  my  subject,  and  compared  with  me 
Those  who  have  always  hved  on  the  firm  ground 
Are  quite  unreal  in  this  matter  of  the  wind. 
There  were  whole  days  and  nights  when  the  wind 

and  I 
Between  us  shared  the  world,  and  the  wind  ruled 
And  I  obeyed  it  and  forgot  the  mist. 
My  past  and  the  past  of  the  world  were  in  the  wind. 
Now  you  may  say  that  though  you  understand 
And  feel  for  me,  and  so  on,  you  yourself 
Would  find  it  different.     You  are  all  Hke  that 
If  once  you  stand  here  free  from  wind  and  mist : 
I  might  as  well  be  talking  to  wind  and  mist. 
You  would  believe  the  house-agent's  young  man 
Who  gives  no  heed  to  anything  I  say. 
Good-morning.     But  one  word.     I  want  to  admit 
That  I  would  try  the  house  once  more,  if  I  could  ; 
As  I  should  like  to  try  being  young  again." 


31 


The   Unknown   Bird 


Three  lovely  notes  he  whistled,  too  soft  to  be  heard 
If  others  sang  ;   but  others  never  sang 
In  the  great  beech-wood  all  that  May  and  June. 
No  one  saw  him  :   I  alone  could  hear  him 
Though  many  listened.     Was  it  but  four  years 
Ago  ?   or  five  ?      He  never  came  again. 

Oftenest  when  I  heard  him  I  was  alone, 
Nor  could  I  ever  make  another  hear. 
La-la-la  !   he  called  seeming  far-off — 
As  if  a  cock  crowed  past  the  edge  of  the  world. 
As  if  the  bird  or  I  were  in  a  dream. 
Yet  that  he  travelled  through  the  trees  and  some- 
times 
Neared  me,  was  plain,  though  somehow  distant  still 
He  sounded.     All  the  proof  is — I  told  men 
What  I  had  heard. 

I  never  knew  a  voice, 
Man,  beast,  or  bird,  better  than  this.     I  told 
The  naturahsts  ;   but  neither  had  they  heard 
Anything  like  the  notes  that  did  so  haunt  me, 
I  had  them  clear  by  heart  and  have  them  still. 
Four  years,  or  five,  have  made  no  difference.     Then 
As  now  that  La-la-la  !   was  bodiless  sweet : 
Sad  more  than  joyful  it  was,  if  I  must  say 
132 


That  it  was  one  or  other,  but  if  sad 

'Twas  sad  only  with  joy  too,  too  far  off 

For  me  to  taste  it.     But  I  cannot  tell 

If  truly  never  anything  but  fair 

The  days  were  when  he  sang,  as  now  they  seem. 

This  surely  I  know,  that  I  who  Hstened  then, 

Happy  sometimes,  sometimes  suffering 

A  heavy  body  and  a  heavy  heart, 

Now  straightway,  if  I  think  of  it,  become 

Light  as  that  bird  wandering  beyond  my  shore. 


133 


The  Liofty   Sky 


To-day  I  want  the  sky, 
The  tops  of  the  high  hills. 
Above  the  last  man's  house, 
His  hedges,  and  his  cows, 
Where,  if  I  will,  I  look 
Down  even  on  sheep  and  rook, 
And  of  all  things  that  move 
See  buzzards  only  above  : — 
Past  all  trees,  past  furze 
And  thorn,  where  nought  deters 
The  desire  of  the  eye 
For  sky,  nothing  but  sky. 
I  sicken  of  the  woods 
And  all  the  multitudes 
Of  hedge-trees.     They  are  no  more 
Than  weeds  upon  this  floor 
Of  the  river  of  air 
Leagues  deep,  leagues  wide,  where 
I  am  like  a  fish  that  lives 
In  weeds  and  mud  and  gives 
What's  above  him  no  thought. 
I  might  be  a  tench  for  aught 
That  I  can  do  to-day 
Down  on  the  wealden  clay. 
Even  the  tench  has  days 
When  he  floats  up  and  plays 
134 


Among  the  lily  leaves 
And  sees  the  sky,  or  grieves 
Not  if  he  nothing  sees  : 
While  I,  I  know  that  trees 
Under  that  lofty  sky 
Are  weeds,  fields  mud,  and  I 
Would  arise  and  go  far 
To  where  the  lilies  are. 


'35 


After  Rain 


The  rain  of  a  night  and  a  day  and  a  night 

Stops  at  the  light 

Of  this  pale  choked  day.     The  peering  sun 

Sees  what  has  been  done. 

The  road  under  the  trees  has  a  border  new 

Of  purple  hue 

Inside  the  border  of  bright  thin  'grass  : 

For  all  that  has 

Been  left  by  November  of  leaves  is  torn 

From  hazel  and  thorn 

And  the  greater  trees.     Throughout  the  copse 

No  dead  leaf  drops 

On  grey  grass,  green  moss,  burnt-orange  fern. 

At  the  wind's  return  : 

The  leaflets  out  of  the  ash-tree  shed 

Are  thinly  spread 

In  the  road,  like  little  black  fish,  inlaid, 

As  if  they  played. 

What  hangs  from  the  myriad  branches  down  there 

So  hard  and  bare 

Is  twelve  yellow  apples  lovely  to  see 

On  one  crab-tree. 

And  on  each  twig  of  every  tree  in  the  dell 

Uncountable 

Crystals  both  dark  and  bright  of  the  rain 

That  begins  again. 

136 


Digging 


To-day  I  think 

Only  with  scents,— scents  dead  leaves  yield, 
And  bracken,  and  wild  carrot's  seed, 
And  the  square  mustard  field  ; 

Odours  that  rise 

When  the  spade  wounds  the  root  of  tree, 
Rose,  currant,  raspberry,  or  goutweed, 
Rhubarb  or  celery  ; 

The  smoke's  smell,  too, 
Flowing  from  where  a  bonfire  burns 
The  dead,  the  waste,  the  dangerous. 
And  all  to  sweetness  turns. 

It  is  enough 

To  smell,  to  crumble  the  dark  earth, 
While  the  robin  sings  over  again 
Sad  songs  of  Autumn  mirth. 


137 


But    These    Things  Also 


But  these  things  also  are  Spring's — 
On  banks  by  the  roadside  the  grass 
Long-dead  that  is  greyer  now 
Than  all  the  Winter  it  was  ; 

The  shell  of  a  little  snail  bleached 
In  the  grass  ;   chip  of  flint,  and  mite 
Of  chalk  ;   and  the  small  bird's  dung 
In  splashes  of  purest  white  : 

All  the  white  things  a  man  mistakes 
For  earliest  violets 
Who  seeks  through  Winter's  ruins 
Something  to  pay  Winter's  debts, 

While  the  North  blows,  and  starling  flock 

By  chattering  on  and  on 

Keep  their  spirits  up  in  the  mist, 

And  Spring's  here,  Winter's  not  gone. 


138 


April 


The  sweetest  thing,  I  thought 

At  one  time,  between  earth  and  heaven 

Was  the  first  smile 

When  mist  has  been  forgiven 

And  the  sun  has  stolen  out. 

Peered,  and  resolved  to  shine  at  seven 

On  dabbled  lengthening  grasses, 

Thick  primroses  and  early  leaves  uneven. 

When  earth's  breath,  warm  and  humid,  far  surpasses 

The  richest  oven's,  and  loudly  rings  "  cuckoo  " 

And    sharply    the    nightingale's    "  tsoo,    tsoo,    tsoo» 

tsoo  "  : 
To  say  "  God  bless  it  "  was  all  that  I  could  do. 

But  now  I  know  one  sweeter 
By  far  since  the  day  Emily 
Turned  weeping  back 
To  me,  still  happy  me. 
To  ask  forgiveness, — 
Yet  smiled  with  half  a  certainty 
To  be  forgiven, — for  what 

She  had  never  done  ;    I  knew  not  what  it  might  be, 
Nor  could  she  tell  me,  having  now  forgot, 
By  rapture  carried  with  me  past  all  care 
As  to  an  isle  in  April  loveher 

Than  April's  self.     "  God  bless  you  "  I  said  to  her. 
139 


The   Barn 


They  should  never  have  built  a  barn  there,  at  all — 
Drip,  drip,  drip  ! — under  that  elm  tree, 
Though  then  it  was  young.     Now  it  is  old 
But  good,  not  like  the  barn  and  me. 

To-morrow  they  cut  it  down.     They  will  leave 
The  barn,  as  I  shall  be  left,  maybe. 
What  holds  it  up  ?     'Twould  not  pay  to  pull  down. 
Well,  this  place  has  no  other  antiquity. 

No  abbey  or  castle  looks  so  old 

As  this  that  Job  Knight  built  in  '54, 

Built  to  keep  corn  for  rats  and  men. 

Now  there's  fowls  in  the  roof,  pigs  on  the  floor. 

What  thatch  survives  is  dung  for  the  grass. 
The  best  grass  on  the  farm.     A  pity  the  roof 
Will  not  bear  a  mower  to  mow  it.     But 
Only  fowls  have  foothold  enough. 

Starlings  used  to  sit  there  with  bubbling  throats 
Making  a  spiky  beard  as  they  chattered 
And  whistled  and  kissed,  with  heads  in  air, 
Till  they  thought  of  something  else  that  mattered. 
140 


But  now  they  cannot  find  a  place. 
Among  all  those  holes,  for  a  nest  any  more, 
it's  the  turn  of  lesser  things,  I  suppose. 
Once  I  fancied  'twas  starlings  they  built  it  for. 


141 


The  Barn   and  the   Down 


It  stood  in  the  sunset  sky 
Like  the  straight-backed  down, 
Many  a  time — -the  barn 
At  the  edge  of  the  town, 

So  huge  and  dark  that  it  seemed 
It  was  the  hill 

Till  the  gable's  precipice  proved 
It  impossible. 

Then  the  great  down  in  the  west 
Grew  into  sight, 
A  barn  stored  full  to  the  ridge 
With  black  of  night  ; 

And  the  barn  fell  to  a  barn 
Or  even  less 

Before  critical  eyes  and  its  own 
Late  mightiness. 

But  far  down  and  near  barn  and  I 
Since  then  have  smiled. 
Having  seen  my  new  cautiousness 
By  itself  beguiled 

To  disdain  what  seemed  the  barn 
Till  a  few  steps  changed 
It  past  all  doubt  to  the  down  ; 
So  the  barn  was  avenged. 
142 


The  Child  on  the  Cliffs 


Mother,  the  root  of  this  Httle  yellow  flower 

Among  the  stones  has  the  taste  of  quinine. 

Things   are   strange   to-day  on   the   cliff.     The   sun 

shines  so  bright, 
And  the  grasshopper  works  at  his  sewing-machine 
So  hard.     Here's  one  on  my  hand,  mother,  look  ; 
I  He  so  still.     There's  one  on  your  book. 

But  I  have  something  to  tell  more  strange.     So  leave 
Your  book  to  the  grasshopper,  mother  dear, — 
Like  a  green  knight  in  a  dazzhng  market-place, — 
And  listen  now.     Can  you  hear  what  I  hear 
Far  out  ?     Now  and  then  the  foam  there  curls 
And  stretches  a  white  arm  out  hke  a  girl's. 

Fishes  and  gulls  ring  no  bells.     There  cannot  be 

A  chapel  or  church  between  here  and  Devon, 

With  fishes  or  gulls  ringing  its  bell, — -hark  ! — 

Somewhere  under  the  sea  or  up  in  heaven. 

"  It's  the  bell,  my  son,  out  in  the  bay 

On  the  buoy.     It  does  sound  sweet  to-day." 

Sweeter  I  never  heard,  mother,  no,  not  in  all  Wales. 
I  should  like  to  be  lying  under  that  foam. 
Dead,  but  able  to  hear  the  sound  of  the  bell, 
And  certain  that  you  would  often  come 
And  rest,  listening  happily. 
I  should  be  happy  if  that  could  be. 
H3 


Good-Night 


The    skylarks   are   far   behind   that    sang   over   the 

down  ; 
I  can  hear  no  more  those  suburb  nightingales  ; 
Thrushes  and  blackbirds  sing  in  the  gardens  of  the 

town 
In   vain  :     the   noise   of   man,    beast,    and   machine 

prevails. 

But  the  call  of  children  in  the  unfamihar  streets 
That  echo  with  a  famiHar  twiHght  echoing, 
Sweet  as  the  voice  of  nightingale  or  lark,  completes 
A  magic  of  strange  welcome,  so  that  I  seem  a  king 

Among  man,   beast,   machine,   bird,   child,   and   the 

ghost 
That  in  the  echo  Hves  and  with  the  echo  dies. 
The  friendless  town  is  friendly  ;    homeless,  I  am  not 

lost  ; 
Though  I  know  none  of  these  doors,  and  meet  but 

strangers'  eyes. 

Never  again,  perhaps,  after  to-morrow,  shall 

I   see   these   homely  streets,   these   church  windows 

alight, 
Not  a  man  or  woman  or  child  among  them  all : 
But  it  is  All  Friends'  Night,  a  traveller's  good-night. 
144 


The  Wasp  Trap 


This  moonlight  makes 
The  lovely  lovelier 
Than  ever  before  lakes 
And  meadows  were. 

And  yet  they  are  not, 
Though  this  their  hour  is,  more 
Lovely  than  things  that  were  not 
Lovely  before. 

Nothing  on  earth, 
And  in  the  heavens  no  star. 
For  pure  brightness  is  worth 
More  than  that  jar, 

For  wasps  meant,  now 
A  star — long  may  it  swing 
From  the  dead  apple-bough, 
So  glistening. 


H5 


July 


Naught  moves  but  clouds,  and  in  the  glassy  lake 
Their  doubles  and  the  shadow  of  my  boat. 
The  boat  itself  stirs  only  when  I  break 
This  drowse  of  heat  and  solitude  afloat 
To  prove  if  what  I  see  be  bird  or  mote, 
Or  learn  if  yet  the  shore  woods  be  awake. 

Long  hours  since  dawn  grew, — spread, — and  passed 

on  high 
And  deep   below, — I   have  watched   the   cool  reeds 

hung 
Over  images  more  cool  in  imaged  sky  : 
Nothing  there  was  worth  thinking  of  so  long  ; 
All  that  the  ring-doves  say,  far  leaves  among. 
Brims  my  mind  with  content  thus  still  to  lie. 


146 


A  Tale 


There  once  the  walls 

Of  the  ruined  cottage  stood. 

The  periwinkle  crawls 

With  flowers  in  its  hair  into  the  wood. 

In  flowerless  hours 

Never  will  the  bank  fail, 

With  everlasting  flowers 

On  fragments  of  blue  plates,  to  tell  the  tale. 


HI 


Parting 


The  Past  is  a  strange  land,  most  strange. 
Wind  blows  not  there,  nor  does  rain  fall : 
If  they  do,  they  cannot  hurt  at  all. 
Men  of  all  kinds  as  equals  range 

The  soundless  fields  and  streets  of  it. 
Pleasure  and  pain  there  have  no  sting. 
The  perished  self  not  suffering 
That  lacks  all  blood  and  nerve  and  wit. 

And  is  in  shadow-land  a  shade. 
Remembered  joy  and  misery 
Bring  joy  to  the  joyous  equally  ; 
Both  sadden  the  sad.     So  memory  made 

Parting  to-day  a  double  pain  : 
First  because  it  was  parting  ;    next 
Because  the  ill  it  ended  vexed 
And  mocked  me  from  the  Past  again, 

Not  as  what  had  been  remedied 
Had  I  gone  on, — not  that,  oh  no  ! 
But  as  itself  no  longer  woe  ; 
Sighs,  angry  word  and  look  and  deed 

Being  faded  :   rather  a  kind  of  bHss, 
For  there  spiritualized  it  lay 
In  the  perpetual  yesterday 
That  naught  can  stir  or  stain  like  this. 
148 


Lovers 


The  two  men  in  the  road  were  taken  aback. 
The  lovers  came  out  shading  their  eyes  from  the  sun. 
And  never  was  white  so  white,  or  black  so  black, 
As  her  cheeks  and  hair.     "There  are  more  things 

than  one 
A  man  might  turn  into  a  wood  for.  Jack," 
Said  George  ;     Jack  whispered  :     "  He  has   not  got 

a  gun. 
It's  a  bit  too  much  of  a  good  thing,  I  say. 
They  are  going  the  other  road,  look.     And  see  her 

run."— 
She  ran. — "  What  a  thing  it  is,  this  picking  may  !  " 


149 


That  GirTs   Clear   Eyes 


That  girl's  clear  eyes  utterly  concealed  all 
Except  that  there  was  something  to  reveal. 
And  what  did  mine  say  in  the  interval  ? 
No  more  :   no  less.     They  are  but  as  a  seal 
Not  to  be  broken  till  after  I  am  dead  ; 
And  then  vainly.     Everyone  of  us 
This  morning  at  our  tasks  left  nothing  said, 
In  spite  of  many  words.     We  were  sealed  thus, 
Like  tombs.     Nor  until  now  could  I  admit 
That  all  I  cared  for  was  the  pleasure  and  pain 
I  tasted  in  the  stony  square  sunlit, 
Or  the  dark  cloisters,  or  shade  of  airy  plane, 
While  music  blazed  and  children,  Hne  after  line. 
Marched    past,    hiding    the    "  Seventeen    Thirty- 
Nine." 


[50 


The   Child  in   the    Orchard 


'*  He  rolls  in  the  orchard  :   he  is  stained  with  moss 
And  with  earth,  the  solitary  old  white  horse. 
Where  is  his  father  and  where  is  his  mother 
Among  all  the  brown  horses  ?     Has  he  a  brother  ? 
I  know  the  swallow,  the  hawk,  and  the  hern  ; 
But  there  are  two  million  things  for  me  to  learn. 

"  Who  was  the  lady  that  rode  the  white  horse 
With  rings  and  bells  to  Banbury  Cross  ? 
Was  there  no  other  lady  in  England  beside 
That  a  nursery  rhyme  could  take  for  a  ride  ? 
The  swift,  the  swallow,  the  hawk,  and  the  hern. 
There  are  two  million  things  for  me  to  learn. 

"  Was  there  a  man  once  who  straddled  across 
The  back  of  the  Westbury  White  Horse 
Over  there  on  Salisbury  Plain's  green  wall  ? 
Was  he  bound  for  Westbury,  or  had  he  a  fall  ? 
The  swift,  the  swallow,  the  hawk,  and  the  hern. 
There  are  two  million  things  for  me  to  learn. 

"  Out  of  all  the  white  horses  I  know  three. 
At  the  age  of  six  ;    and  it  seems  to  me 
There  is  so  much  to  learn,  for  men. 
That  I  dare  not  go  to  bed  again. 
The  swift,  the  swallow,  the  hawk,  and  the  hern. 
There  are  millions  of  things  for  me  to  learn." 


The   Source 


All  day  the  air  triumphs  with  its  two  voices 

Of  wind  and  rain 

As  loud  as  if  in  anger  it  rejoices, 

Drowning  the  sound  of  earth 

That  gulps  and  gulps  in  choked  endeavour  vain 

To  swallow  the  rain. 

Half  the  night,  too,  only  the  wild  air  speaks 

With  wind  and  rain. 

Till  forth  the  dumb  source  of  the  river  breaks 

And  drowns  the  rain  and  wind. 

Bellows  like  a  giant  bathing  in  mighty  mirth 

The  triumph  of  earth. 


152 


The  Mountain    Chapel 


Chapel  and  gravestones,  old  and  few, 

Are  shrouded  by  a  mountain  fold 

From  sound  and  view 

Of  life.     The  loss  of  the  brook's  voice 

Falls  like  a  shadow.     All  they  hear  is 

The  eternal  noise 

Of  wind  whisthng  in  grass  more  shrill 

Than  aught  as  human  as  a  sword. 

And  saying  still : 

"  'Tis  but  a  moment  since  man's  birth 

And  in  another  moment  more 

Man  lies  in  earth 

For  ever  ;   but  I  am  the  same 

Now,  and  shall  be,  even  as  I  was 

Before  he  came  ; 

Till  there  is  nothing  I  shall  be." 

Yet  there  the  sun  shines  after  noon 

So  cheerfully 

The  place  almost  seems  peopled,  nor 

Lacks  cottage  chimney,  cottage  hearth  : 

It  is  not  more 

In  size  than  is  a  cottage,  less 

Than  any  other  empty  home 

In  homeliness. 

It  has  a  garden  of  wild  flowers 

And  finest  grass  and  gravestones  warm 
153 


In  sunshine  hours 

The  year  through.     Men  behind  the  glass 

Stand  once  a  week,  singing,  and  drown 

The  whistling  grass 

Their  ponies  munch.     And  yet  somewhere, 

Near  or  far  off,  there's  a  man  could 

Be  happy  here, 

Or  one  of  the  gods  perhaps,  were  they 

Not  of  inhuman  stature  dire, 

As  poets  say 

Who  have  not  seen  them  clearly  ;   if 

At  sound  of  any  wind  of  the  world 

In  grass-blades  stiff 

They  would  not  startle  and  shudder  cold 

Under  the  sun.     When  gods  were  young 

This  wind  was  old. 


'54 


First  Known  when  Lost 


I  NEVER  had  noticed  it  until 
'Twas  gone, — the  narrow  copse 
Where  now  the  woodman  lops 
The  last  of  the  willows  with  his  bill, 

It  was  not  more  than  a  hedge  overgrown. 

One  meadow's  breadth  away 

I  passed  it  day  by  day. 

Now  the  soil  was  bare  as  a  bone, 

And  black  betwixt  two  meadows  green. 

Though  fresh-cut  faggot  ends 

Of  hazel  made  some  amends 

With  a  gleam  as  if  flowers  they  had  been. 

Strange  it  could  have  hidden  so  near  ! 

And  now  I  see  as  I  look 

That  the  small  winding  brook, 

A  tributary's  tributary,  rises  there. 


155 


The  Word 


There  are  so  many  things  I  have  forgot, 

That  once  were  much  to  me,  or  that  were  not, 

All  lost,  as  is  a  childless  woman's  child 

And  its  child's  children,  in  the  undefiled 

Abyss  of  what  can  never  be  again. 

I  have  forgot,  too,  names  of  the  mighty  men 

That  fought  and  lost  or  won  in  the  old  wars. 

Of  kings  and  fiends  and  gods,  and  most  of  the  stars 

Some  things  I  have  forgot  that  I  forget. 

But  lesser  things  there  are,  remembered  yet, 

Than  all  the  others.     One  name  that  I  have  not — 

Though  'tis  an  empty  thingless  name — forgot 

Never  can  die  because  Spring  after  Spring 

Some  thrushes  learn  to  say  it  as  they  sing. 

There  is  always  one  at  midday  saying  it  clear 

And  tart — the  name,  only  the  name  I  hear. 

While  perhaps  I  am  thinking  of  the  elder  scent 

That  is  like  food,  or  while  I  am  content 

With  the  wild  rose  scent  that  is  like  memory, 

This  name  suddenly  is  cried  out  to  me 

From  somewhere  in  the  bushes  by  a  bird 

Over  and  over  again,  a  pure  thrush  word. 


156 


These    Things  that   Poets  Said 


These  things  that  poets-aaid 
Of  love  seemed  true  to  me 
When  I  loved  and  I  fed 
On  love  and  poetry  equally. 

But  now  I  wish  I  knew 

If  theirs  were  love  indeed, 

Or  if  mine  were  the  true 

And  theirs  some  other  lovely  weed 

For  certainly  not  thus, 
Then  or  thereafter,  I 
Loved  ever.     Between  us 
Decide,  good  Love,  before  I  die. 

Only,  that  once  I  loved 
By  this  one  argument 
Is  very  plainly  proved  : 
I,  loving  not,  am  different. 


157 


Home 


Not  the  end  :   but  there's  nothing  more. 
Sweet  Summer  and  Winter  rude 
I  have  loved,  and  friendship  and  love, 
The  crowd  and  solitude  : 

But  I  know  them  :    I  weary  not  ; 
But  all  that  they  mean  I  know. 
I  would  go  back  again  home 
Now.     Yet  how  should  I  go  ? 

This  is  my  grief.     That  land. 
My  home,  I  have  never  seen  ; 
No  traveller  tells  of  it, 
However  far  he  has  been. 

And  could  I  discover  it, 

I  fear  my  happiness  there, 

Or  my  pain,  might  be  dreams  of  return 

Here,  to  these  things  that  were. 

Remembering  ills,  though  shght 
Yet  irremediable, 
Brings  a  worse,  an  impurer  pang 
Than  remembering  what  was  well. 

No  :    I  cannot  go  back, 
And  would  not  if  I  could. 
Until  blindness  come,  I  must  wait 
And  bhnk  at  what  is  not  good. 
158 


Aspens 


A.LL  day  and  night,  save  winter,  every  weather, 
Above  the  inn,  the  smithy,  and  the  shop, 
The  aspens  at  the  cross-roads  talk  together 
Of  rain,  until  their  last  leaves  fall  from  the  top. 

Out  of  the  blacksmith's  cavern  comes  the  ringing 
Of  hammer,  shoe,  and  anvil ;   out  of  the  inn 
The  chnk,  the  hum,  the  roar,  the  random  singing — 
The  sounds  that  for  these  fifty  years  have  been. 

The  whisper  of  the  aspens  is  not  drowned, 
And  over  lightless  pane  and  footless  road. 
Empty  as  sky,  with  every  other  sound 
Not  ceasing,  calls  their  ghosts  from  their  abode, 

A  silent  smithy,  a  silent  inn,  nor  fails 

In  the  bare  moonlight  or  the  thick-furred  gloom. 

In  tempest  or  the  night  of  nightingales, 

To  turn  the  cross-roads  to  a  ghostly  room. 

And  it  would  be  the  same  were  no  house  near. 
Over  all  sorts  of  weather,  men,  and  times. 
Aspens  must  shake  their  leaves  and  men  may  hear 
But  need  not  listen,  more  than  to  my  rhymes. 

Whatever  wind  blows,  while  they  and  I  have  leaves 
We  cannot  other  than  an  aspen  be 
That  ceaselessly,  unreasonably  grieves. 
Or  so  men  think  who  hke  a  different  tree. 
159 


An    Old  Song 


I   WAS   not   apprenticed   nor  ever   dwelt   in   famous 

Lincolnshire  ; 
I've  served  one  master  ill  and  well  much  more  than 

seven  year  ; 
And  never  took  up  to  poaching  as  you  shall  quickly 

find; 
But  'tis  my  delight  of  a  shiny  night  in  the  season 

of  the  year. 


I  roamed  where  nobody  had  a  right  but  keepers  and 

squires,  and  there 
I    sought   for   nests,    wild   flowers,    oak   sticks,    and 

moles,  both  far  and  near. 
And    had    to    run    from    farmers,    and    learnt    the 

Lincolnshire  song  : 
"  Oh,  'tis  my  delight  of  a  shiny  night  in  the  season 

of  the  year." 


I  took  those  walks  years  after,  talking  with  friend 

or  dear, 
Or  solitary  musing  ;    but  when  the  moon  shone  clear 
I  had  no  joy  or  sorrow  that  could  not  be  expressed 
By  "  'Tis  my  delight  of  a  shiny  night  in  the  season 
of  the  year." 

1 60 


Since  then  I've  thrown  away  a   chance  to  fight  a 

gamekeeper  ; 
And  I  less  often  trespass,  and  what  I  see  or  hear 
Is  mostly  from  the  road  or  path  by  day  :    yet  still 

I  sing  : 
"  Oh,  'tis  my  delight  of  a  shiny  night  in  the  season 

of  the  year." 


For  if  I  am  contented,  at  home  or  anywhere. 

Or  if  I  sigh  for  I  know  not  what,  or  my  heart  beats 

with  some  fear, 
It  is  a  strange  kind  of  dehght  to  sing  or  whistle  just  : 
"  Oh,  'tis  my  delight  of  a  shiny  night  in  the  season 
of  the  year." 


And  with  this  melody  on  my  lips  and  no  one  by  to 

care, 
Indoors,  or  out  on  shiny  nights  or  dark  in  open  air, 
I  am  for  a  moment  made  a  man  that  sings  out  of  his 

heart : 
"  Oh,  'tis  my  dehght  of  a  shiny  night  in  the  season 

of  the  year." 


i6i 


There   Was  a    Tifue 


There  was  a  time  when  this  poor  frame  was  whole 

And  I  had  youth  and  never  another  care, 

Or  none  that  should  have  troubled  a  strong  soul. 

Yet,  except  sometimes  in  a  frosty  air 

When  my  heels  hammered  out  a  melody 

From  pavements  of  a  city  left  behind, 

I  never  would  acknowledge  my  own  glee 

Because  it  was  less  mighty  than  my  mind 

Had  dreamed  of.     Since  I  could  not  boast  of  strength 

Great  as  I  wished,  weakness  was  all  my  boast. 

I  sought  yet  hated  pity  till  at  length 

I  earned  it.     Oh,  too  heavy  was  the  cost  ! 

But  now  that  there  is  something  I  could  use 

My  youth  and  strength  for,  I  deny  the  age. 

The  care  and  weakness  that  I  know — refuse 

To  admit  I  am  unworthy  of  the  wage 

Paid  to  a  man  who  gives  up  eyes  and  breath 

For  what  can  neither  ask  nor  heed  his  death. 


162 


Ambition 


Unless  it  was  that  day  I  never  knew 
Ambition.     After  a  night  of  frost,  before 
The  March  sun  brightened  and  the  South-west  blew, 
Jackdaws  began  to  shout  and  float  and  soar 
Already,  and  one  was  racing  straight  and  high 
Alone,  shouting  like  a  black  warrior 
Challenges  and  menaces  to  the  wide  sky. 
With  loud  long  laughter  then  a  woodpecker 
Ridiculed  the  sadness  of  the  owl's  last  cry. 
And  through  the  valley  where  all  the  folk  astir 
Made  only  plumes  of  pearly  smoke  to  tower 
Over  dark  trees  and  white  meadows  happier 
Than  was  Elysium  in  that  happy  hour, 
A  train  that  roared  along  raised  after  it 
And  carried  with  it  a  motionless  white  bower 
Of  purest  cloud,  from  end  to  end  close-knit. 
So  fair  it  touched  the  roar  with  silence.     Time 
Was  powerless  while  that  lasted.     I  could  sit 
And  think  I  had  made  the  lovehness  of  prime. 
Breathed  its  life  into  it  and  were  its  lord. 
And  no  mind  lived  save  this  'twixt  clouds  and  rime. 
Omnipotent  I  was,  nor  even  deplored 
That  I  did  nothing.     But  the  end  fell  hke  a  bell : 
The  bower  was  scattered  ;   far  off  the  train  roared. 
But  if  this  was  ambition  I  cannot  tell. 
What  'twas  ambition  for  I  know  not  well, 
163 


No   0916    Cares   Less   than   I 


"  No  one  cares  less  than  I, 
Nobody  knows  but  God, 
Whether  I  am  destined  to  he 
Under  a  foreign  clod," 

Were  the  words   I   made   to   the   bugle   call  in   the 
morning. 

But  laughing,  storming,  scorning. 
Only  the  bugles  know 
What  the  bugles  say  in  the  morning, 
And  they  do  not  care,  when  they  blow 
The  call  that  I  heard  and  made  words  to  early  this, 
morning. 


164 


Roads 


I  LOVE  roads  : 
The  goddesses  that  dwell 
Far  along  invisible 
Are  my  favourite  gods. 

Roads  go  on 
While  we  forget,  and  are 
Forgotten  like  a  star 
That  shoots  and  is  gone. 

On  this  earth  'tis  sure 
We  men  have  not  made 
Anything  that  doth  fade 
So  soon,  so  long  endure  : 

The  hill  road  wet  with  rain 
In  the  sun  would  not  gleam 
Like  a  winding  stream 
If  we  trod  it  not  again. 

They  are  lonely 
While  we  sleep,  lonelier 
For  lack  of  the  traveller 
Who  is  now  a  dream  only. 
165 


From  dawn's  twilight 
And  all  the  clouds  like  sheep 
On  the  mountains  of  sleep 
They  wind  into  the  night. 

The  next  turn  may  reveal 
Heaven  :   upon  the  crest 
The  close  pine  clump,  at  rest 
And  black,  may  Hell  conceal. 

Often  footsore,  never 
Yet  of  the  road  I  weary, 
Though  long  and  steep  and  dreary, 
As  it  winds  on  for  ever. 

Helen  of  the  roads, 
The  mountain  ways  of  Wales 
And  the  Mabinogion  tales 
Is  one  of  the  true  gods, 

Abiding  in  the  trees, 
The  threes  and  fours  so  wise, 
The  larger  companies. 
That  by  the  roadside  be. 

And  beneath  the  rafter 
Else  uninhabited 
Excepting  by  the  dead  ; 
And  it  is  her  laughter 
i66 


At  morn  and  night  I  hear 
When  the  thrush  cock  sings 
Bright  irrelevant  things, 
And  when  the  chanticleer 

Calls  back  to  their  own  night 
Troops  that  make  lonehness 
With  their  light  footsteps'  press, 
As  Helen's  own  are  light. 

Now  all  roads  lead  to  France 
And  heavy  is  the  tread 
Of  the  living  ;   but  the  dead 
Returning  lightly  dance  : 

Whatever  the  road  bring 
To  me  or  take  from  me, 
They  keep  me  company 
With  their  pattering, 

Crowding  the  solitude 
Of  the  loops  over  the  downs. 
Hushing  the  roar  of  towns 
And  their  brief  multitude. 


167 


This  is  No  Case  of  Petty  Right  or  Wrong 


This  is  no  case  of  petty  right  or  wrong 
That  politicians  or  philosophers 
Can  judge.     I  hate  not  Germans,  nor  grow  hot 
With  love  of  Englishmen,  to  please  newspapers. 
Beside  my  hate  for  one  fat  patriot 
My  hatred  of  the  Kaiser  is  love  true  : — 
A  kind  of  god  he  is,  banging  a  gong. 
But  I  have  not  to  choose  between  the  two, 
Or  between  justice  and  injustice.     Dinned 
With  war  and  argument  I  read  no  more 
Than  in  the  storm  smoking  along  the  wind 
.Athwart  the  wood.     Two  witches'  cauldrons  roar. 
From  one  the  weather  shall  rise  clear  and  gay  ; 
Out  of  the  other  an  England  beautiful 
And  like  her  mother  that  died  yesterday. 
Little  I  know  or  care  if,  being  dull, 
I  shall  miss  something  that  historians 
Can  rake  out  of  the  ashes  when  perchance 
The  phoenix  broods  serene  above  their  ken. 
But  with  the  best  and  meanest  Englishmen 
I  am  one  in  crying,  God  save  England,  lest 
We  lose  what  never  slaves  and  cattle  blessed. 
The  ages  made  her  that  made  us  from  the  dust  : 
She  is  all  we  know  and  live  by,  and  we  trust 
She  is  good  and  must  endure,  loving  her  so  : 
And  as  we  love  ourselves  we  hate  her  foe. 
1 68 


The  Chalk-Ptt 


*'  Is  this  the  road  that  climbs  above  and  bends 
Round  what  was  once  a  chalk-pit :    now  it  is 
By  accident  an  amphitheatre. 
Some  ash  trees  standing  ankle-deep  in  brier 
And  bramble  act  the  parts,  and  neither  speak 
Nor  stir."     "  But  see  :   they  have  fallen,  every  one, 
And  brier  and  bramble  have  grown  over  them." 
"  That  is  the  place.     As  usual  no  one  is  here. 
Hardly  can  I  imagine  the  drop  of  the  axe, 
And  the  smack  that  is  like  an  echo,  sounding  here  " 
"  I  do  not  understand."     "  Why,  what  I  mean  is 
That  I  have  seen  the  place  two  or  three  times 
At  most,  and  that  its  emptiness  and  silence 
And  stillness  haunt  me,  as  if  just  before 
It  was  not  empty,  silent,  still,  but  full 
Of  life  of  some  kind,  perhaps  tragical. 
Has  anything  unusual  happened  here  ?  " 
*'  Not  that  I  know  of.     It  is  called  the  Dell. 
They  have  not  dug  chalk  here  for  a  century. 
That  was  the  ash  trees'  age.     But  I  will  ask." 
*'  No.     Do  not.     I  prefer  to  make  a  tale. 
Or  better  leave  it  like  the  end  of  a  play. 
Actors  and  audience  and  lights  all  gone  ; 
For  so  it  looks  now.     In  my  memory 
Again  and  again  I  see  it,  strangely  dark, 
And  vacant  of  a  life  but  just  withdrawn. 
169 


We  have  not  seen  the  woodman  with  the  axe. 

Some  ghost  has  left  it  now  as  we  two  came." 

"  And  yet  you  doubted  if  this  were  the  road  ?  " 

""  Well,  sometimes  I  have  thought  of  it  and  failed 

To  place  it.     No.     And  I  am  not  quite  sure, 

Even  now,  this  is  it.     For  another  place. 

Real  or  painted,  may  have  combined  with  it. 

Or  I  myself  a  long  way  back  in  time  .  .  ." 

"  Why,  as  to  that,  I  used  to  meet  a  man — 

I  had  forgotten, — searching  for  birds'  nests 

Along  the  road  and  in  the  chalk-pit  too. 

The  wren's  hole  was  an  eye  that  looked  at  him 

For  recognition.     Every  nest  he  knew. 

He  got  a  stiff  neck,  by  looking  this  side  or  that, 

Spring  after  spring,  he  told  me,  with  his  laugh, — 

A  sort  of  laugh.     He  was  a  visitor. 

A  man  of  forty, — smoked  and  strolled  about. 

At  orts  and  crosses  Pleasure  and  Pain  had  played 

On  his  brown  features  ; — I  think  both  had  lost  ; — 

Mild  and  yet  wild  too.     You  may  know  the  kind. 

And  once  or  twice  a  woman  shared  his  walks, 

A  girl  of  twenty  with  a  brown  boy's  face, 

And  hair  brown  as  a  thrush  or  as  a  nut. 

Thick  eyebrows,  glinting  eyes "     "  You  have  said 

enough, 
A  pair, — free  thought,  free  love, — I  know  the  breed  : 
I  shall  not  mix  my  fancies  up  with  them." 
"  You  please  yourself.     I  should  prefer  the  truth 
Or  nothing.     Here,  in  fact,  is  nothing  at  all 
170 


Except  a  silent  place  that  once  rang  loud, 
And  trees  and  us — imperfect  friends,  we  men 
And  trees  since  time  began  ;   and  nevertheless 
Between  us  still  we  breed  a  mystery." 


171 


Health 


Four  miles  at  a  leap,  over  the  dark  hollow  land, 
To  the  frosted  steep  of  the  down  and  its  junipers  black. 
Travels  my  eye  with  equal  ease  and  delight  : 
And  scarce  could  my  bady  leap  four  yards. 

This  is  the  best  and  the  worst  of  it — 

Never  to  know, 

Yet  to  imagine  gloriously,  pure  health. 

To-day,  had  I  suddenly  health, 

I  could  not  satisfy  the  desire  of  my  heart 

Unless  health  abated  it. 

So  beautiful  is  the  air  in  its  softness  and  clearness, 

while  Spring 
Promises  all  and  fails  in  nothing  as  yet  ; 
And  what  blue  and  what  white  is  I  never  knew 
Before  I  saw  this  sky  blessing  the  land. 

For  had  I  health  I  could  not  ride  or  run  or  fly 

So  far  or  so  rapidly  over  the  land 

As  I  desire  :    I  should  reach  Wiltshire  tired  ; 

I  should  have  changed  my  mind  before  I  could  be 

in  Wales. 
I  could  not  love  ;    I  could  not  command  love. 
Beauty  would  still  be  far  oif 
However  many  hills  I  climbed  over  ; 
Peace  would  still  be  farther. 
172 


Maybe  I  should  not  count  it  anything 
To  leap  these  four  miles  with  the  eye  ; 
And  either  I  should  not  be  filled  almost  to  bursting 

with  desire, 
Or  with  my  power  desire  would  still  keep  pace. 

Yet  I  am  not  satisfied 

Even  with  knowing  I  never  could  be  satisfied. 

With  health  and  all  the  power  that  lies 

in  maiden  beauty,  poet  and  warrior, 

In  Caesar,  Shakespeare,  Alcibiades, 

Mazeppa,  Leonardo,  Michelangelo, 

In  any  maiden  whose  smile  is  lovelier 

Than  sunlight  upon  dew, 

I  could  not  be  as  the  wagtail  running  up  and  down 

The  warm  tiles  of  the  roof  slope,  twittering 

Happily  and  sweetly  as  if  the  sun  itself 

Extracted  the  song 

As  the  hand  makes  sparks  from  the  fur  of  a  cat : 

I  could  not  be  as  the  sun. 
Nor  should  I  be  content  to  be 
As  little  as  the  bird  or  as  mighty  as  the  sun. 
For  the  bird  knows  not  of  the  sun, 
And  the  sun  regards  not  the  bird. 
But  I  am  almost  proud  to  love  both  bird  and  sun, 
Though  scarce  this  Spring  could  my  body  leap  four 
yards. 


173 


Beauty 


What  does  it  mean  ?     Tired,  angry,  and  ill  at  ease, 

No  man,  woman,  or  child  alive  could  please 

Me  now.     And  yet  I  almost  dare  to  laugh 

Because  I  sit  and  frame  an  epitaph— 

"  Here  lies  all  that  no  one  loved  of  him 

And  that  loved  no  one."     Then  in  a  trice  that  whim 

Has  wearied.     But,  though  I  am  Hke  a  river 

At  fall  of  evening  while  it  seems  that  never 

Has  the  sun  lighted  it  or  warmed  it,  while 

Cross  breezes  cut  the  surface  to  a  file. 

This  heart,  some  fraction  of  me,  happily 

Floats  through  the  window  even  now  to  a  tree 

Down  in  the  misting,  dim-lit,  quiet  vale, 

Not  like  a  pewit  that  returns  to  wail 

For  something  it  has  lost,  but  like  a  dove 

That  slants  unswerving  to  its  home  and  love. 

There  I  find  my  rest,  and  through  the  dusk  air 

Flies  what  yet  lives  in  me.     Beauty  is  there. 


174 


Snow 


In  the  gloom  of  whiteness, 

In  the  great  silence  of  snow, 

A  child  was  sighing 

And  bitterly  saying  :    "  Oh, 

They  have  killed  a  white  bird  up  there  on  her  nest, 

The  down  is  fluttering  from  her  breast !  " 

And  still  it  fell  through  that  dusky  brightness 

On  the  child  crying  for  the  bird  of  the  snow. 


^7S 


The  New   Year 


He  was  the  one  man  I  met  up  in  the  woods 

That  stormy  New  Year's  morning  ;  and  at  first  sight. 

Fifty  yards  off,  I  could  not  tell  how  much 

Of  the  strange  tripod  was  a  man.     His  body, 

Bowed  horizontal,  was  supported  equally 

By  legs  at  one  end,  by  a  rake  at  the  other  : 

Thus  he  rested,  far  less  hke  a  man  than 

His  wheel-barrow  in  profile  was  like  a  pig. 

But  when  I  saw  it  was  an  old  man  bent, 

At  the  same  moment  came  into  my  mind 

The  games  at  which  boys  bend  thus,  High-cocolorum, 

Or  Fly-the-garter,  and  Leap-frog.     At  the  sound 

Of  footsteps  he  began  to  straighten  himself ; 

His  head  roUed  under  his  cape  hke  a  tortoise's  ; 

He  took  an  unHt  pipe  out  of  his  mouth 

Pohtely  ere  I  wished  him  "  A  Happy  New  Year," 

And  with  his  head  cast  upward  sideways  muttered — 

So  far  as  I  could  hear  through  the  trees'  roar — 

"  Happy  New  Year,  and  may  it  come  fastish,  too," 

While  I  strode  by  and  he  turned  to  raking  leaves. 


176 


The  Brook 


Seated  once  by  a  brook,  watching  a  child 
Chiefly  that  paddled,  I  was  thus  beguiled. 
Mellow    the    blackbird    sang     and     sharp     the 

thrush 
Not  far  off  in  the  oak  and  hazel  brush. 
Unseen.     There  was  a  scent  like  honeycomb 
From    mugwort    dull.       And    down    upon    the 

dome 
Of  the  stone  the  cart-horse  kicks  against  so  oft 
A  butterfly  ahghted.     From  aloft 
He  took  the  heat  of  the  sun,  and  from  below. 
On  the  hot  stone  he  perched  contented  so, 
As  if  never  a  cart  would  pass  again 
That  way  ;   as  if  I  were  the  last  of  men 
And  he  the  first  of  insects  to  have  earth 
And  sun  together  and  to  know  their  worth. 
I  was  divided  between  him  and  the  gleam, 
The  motion,  and  the  voices,  of  the  stream, 
The  waters  running  frizzled  over  gravel, 
That  never  vanish  and  for  ever  travel. 
A  grey  flycatcher  silent  on  a  fence 
And  I  sat  as  if  we  had  been  there  since 
The  horseman  and  the  horse  lying  beneath 
The  fir-tree-covered  barrow  on  the  heath, 
The  horseman  and  the  horse  with  silver  shoes. 
Galloped  the  downs  last.     All  that  I  could  lose 
177 


I  lost.     And  then  the  child's  voice  raised  the  dead. 
"  No  one's  been  here  before  "  was  what  she  said 
And  what  I  felt,  yet  never  should  have  found 
A  word  for,  while  I  gathered  sight  and  sound. 


178 


The   Other 


The  forest  ended.     Glad  I  was 

To  feel  the  light,  and  hear  the  hum 

Of  bees,  and  smell  the  drying  grass 

And  the  sweet  mint,  because  I  had  come 

To  an  end  of  forest,  and  because 

Here  was  both  road  and  inn,  the  sum 

Of  what's  not  forest.     But  'twas  here 

They  asked  me  if  I  did  not  pass 

Yesterday  this  way.      "  Not  you  ?     Queer." 

"  Who  then  ?    and  slept  here  ?  "     I  felt  fear. 

I  learnt  his  road  and,  ere  they  were 
Sure  I  was  I,  left  the  dark  wood 
Behind,  kestrel  and  woodpecker. 
The  inn  in  the  sun,  the  happy  mood 
When  first  I  tasted  sunhght  there. 
I  travelled  fast,  in  hopes  I  should 
Outrun  that  other.     What  to  do 
When  caught,  I  planned  not.     I  pursued 
To  prove  the  likeness,  and,  if  true, 
To  watch  until  myself  I  knew. 

I  tried  the  inns  that  evening 
Of  a  long  gabled  high-street  grey. 
Of  courts  and  outskirts,  travelling 
An  eager  but  a  weary  way, 
179 


In  vairi.     He  was  not  there.     Nothing 
Told  me  that  ever  till  that  day 
Had  one  like  me  entered  those  doors, 
Save  once.     That  time  I  dared  :  "  You  may- 
Recall  " — but  never-foamless  shores 
Make  better  friends  than  those  dull  boors. 


Many  and  many  a  day  like  this 

Aimed  at  the  unseen  moving  goal 

And  nothing  found  but  remedies 

For  all  desire.     These  made  not  whole  ; 

They  sowed  a  new  desire,  to  kiss 

Desire's  self  beyond  control. 

Desire  of  desire.     And  yet 

Life  stayed  on  within  my  soul. 

One  night  in  sheltering  from  the  wet 

I  quite  forgot  I  could  forget. 

A  customer,  then  the  landlady 
Stared  at  me.     With  a  kind  of  smile 
They  hesitated  awkwardly  : 
Their  silence  gave  me  time  for  guile. 
Had  anyone  called  there  like  me, 
I  asked.     It  was  quite  plain  the  wile 
Succeeded.     For  they  poured  out  all. 
And  that  was  naught.     Less  than  a  mile 
Beyond  the  inn,  I  could  recall 
He  was  like  me  in  general. 
1 80 


He  had  pleased  them,  but  I  less. 

I  was  more  eager  than  before 

To  find  him  out  and  to  confess, 

To  bore  him  and  to  let  him  bore. 

I  could  not  wait :    children  might  guess 

I  had  a  purpose,  something  more 

That  made  an  answer  indiscreet. 

One  girl's  caution  made  me  sore, 

Too  indignant  even  to  greet 

That  other  had  we  chanced  to  meet. 


1  sought  then  in  solitude. 

The  wind  had  fallen  with  the  night ;    as  still 

The  roads  lay  as  the  ploughland  rude. 

Dark  and  naked,  on  the  hill. 

Had  there  been  ever  any  feud 

'Twixt  earth  and  sky,  a  mighty  will 

Closed  it :    the  crocketed  dark  trees, 

A  dark  house,  dark  impossible 

Cloud-towers,  one  star,  one  lamp,  one  peace 

Held  on  an  everlasting  lease  : 

And  all  was  earth's,  or  all  was  sky's  ; 
No  difference  endured  between 
The  two,     A  dog  barked  on  a  hidden  rise  ; 
A  marshbird  whistled  high  unseen  ; 
The  latest  waking  blackbird's  cries 
Perished  upon  the  silence  keen, 
u  i8i 


The  last  light  filled  a  narrow  firth 
Among  the  clouds.     I  stood  serene, 
And  with  a  solemn  quiet  mirth, 
An  old  inhabitant  of  earth. 

Once  the  name  I  gave  to  hours 

Like  this  was  melancholy,  when 

It  was  not  happiness  and  powers 

Coming  like  exiles  home  again, 

And  weaknesses  quitting  their  bowers. 

Smiled  and  enjoyed,  far  off  from  men, 

Moments  of  everlastingness. 

And  fortunate  my  search  was  then 

While  what  I  sought,  nevertheless. 

That  I  was  seeking,  I  did  not  guess. 

That  time  was  brief  :    once  more  at  inn 

And  upon  road  I  sought  my  man 

Till  once  amid  a  tap-room's  din 

Loudly  he  asked  for  me,  began 

To  speak,  as  if  it  had  been  a  sin. 

Of  how  I  thought  and  dreamed  and  ran 

After  him  thus,  day  after  day  : 

He  lived  as  one  under  a  ban 

For  this  :   what  had  I  got  to  say  ? 

I  said  nothing.     I  slipped  away. 

And  now  I  dare  not  follow  after 
Too  close.     I  try  to  keep  in  sight,. 
182 


Dreading  his  frown  and  worse  his  laughter. 

I  steal  out  of  the  wood  to  light ; 

I  see  the  swift  shoot  from  the  rafter 

By  the  inn  door  :    ere  I  alight 

I  wait  and  hear  the  starhngs  wheeze 

And  nibble  hke  ducks  :    I  wait  his  flight. 

He  goes  :    I  follow  :   no  release 

Until  he  ceases.     Then  I  also  shall  cease. 


183 


House  and  Man 


One  hour  :   as  dim  he  and  his  house  now  look 

As  a  reflection  in  a  rippling  brook, 

While  I  remember  him  ;   but  first,  his  house. 

Empty  it  sounded.     It  was  dark  with  forest  boughs 

That  brushed  the  walls  and  made  the  mossy  tiles 

Part  of  the  squirrels'  track.     In  all  those  miles 

Of  forest  silence  and  forest  murmur,  only 

One  house — "  Lonely  !  "    he  said,  "  I  wish  it  were 

lonely  " — 
Which  the  trees  looked  upon  from  every  side, 
And  that  was  his. 

He  waved  good-bye  to  hide 
A  sigh  that  he  converted  to  a  laugh. 
He  seemed  to  hang  rather  than  stand  there,  half 
Ghost-Hke,  half  hke  a  beggar's  rag,  clean  wrung 
And  useless  on  the  brier  where  it  has  hung 
Long  years  a-washing  by  sun  and  wind  and  rain. 

But  why  I  call  back  man  and  house  again 

Is  that  now  on  a  beech-tree's  tip  I  see 

As  then  I  saw — I  at  the  gate,  and  he 

In  the  house  darkness, — a  magpie  veering  about, 

A  magpie  like  a  weathercock  in  doubt. 


[84 


The  Gypsy 


A  FORTNIGHT  before  Christmas  Gypsies  were  every- 
where : 
Vans  were  drawn  up  on  wastes,  women  trailed  to 

the  fair. 
"  My  gentleman,"  said  one,   "  You've  got    a    lucky 

face." 
"  And  you've  a  luckier,"  I  thought,  "  if  such  a  grace 
And  impudence  in  rags  are  lucky."     "  Give  a  penny 
For  the  poor  baby's  sake."      "  Indeed  I  have  not 

any 
Unless   you   can   give   change   for   a    sovereign,    my 

dear." 
"  Then    just    half    a    pipeful    of    tobacco    can    you 

spare  ?  " 
I   gave   it.     With   that    much   victory   she   laughed 

content. 
I   should  have  given   more,   but   off  and   away  she 

went 
With  her  baby  and  her  pink  sham  flowers  to  rejoin 
The  rest  before  I  could  translate  to  its  proper  coin 
Gratitude  for  her  grace.     And  I  paid  nothing  then, 
As  I  pay  nothing  now  with  the  dipping  of  my  pen 
For    her    brother's    music    when    he    drummed    the 

tambourine 
And    stamped   his   feet,    which   made   the   workmen 

passing  grin, 

185 


While     his     mouth-organ     changed     to     a     rascally 

Bacchanal  dance 
"  Over  the  hills  and  far  away."     This  and  his  glance 
Outlasted  all  the  fair,  farmer,  and  auctioneer, 
Cheap-jack,  balloon-man,  drover  with  crooked  stick, 

and  steer. 
Pig,    turkey,    goose,    and    duck,    Christmas    Corpses 

to  be. 
Not  even  the  kneeling  ox  had  eyes  like  the  Romany. 
That  night  he  peopled  for  me  the  hollow  wooded 

land. 
More  dark  and  wild  than  stormiest  heavens,  that   I 

searched  and  scanned 
Like  a  ghost  new-arrived.     The  gradations   of  the 

dark 
Were  Hke  an  underworld  of  death,  but  for  the  spark 
In  the  Gypsy  boy's  black  eyes  as  he  played  and 

stamped  his  tune, 
"  Over  the  hills  and  far  away,"  and  a  crescent  moon. 


i86 


Man   and  Dog 


"  'Twill  take  some  getting."     "  Sir,  I  think  'twill 

so." 
The  old  man  stared  up  the  mistletoe 
That  hung  too  high  in  the  poplar's  crest  for  plunder 
Of  any  climber,  though  not  for  kissing  under  : 
Then  he  went  on  against  the  north-east  wind — 
Straight  but  lame,  leaning  on  a  staff  new-skinned, 
Carrying  a  brolly,  flag-basket,  and  old  coat, — - 
Towards  Alton,  ten  miles  off.     And  he  had  not 
Done  less  from  Chilgrove  where  he  pulled  up  docks. 
'Twere  best,  if  he  had  had  "  a  money-box," 
To  have  waited  there  till  the  sheep  cleared  a  field 
For  what  a  half-week's  flint-picking  would  yield. 
His  mind  was  running  on  the  work  he  had  done 
Since  he  left  Christchurch  in  the  New  Forest,  one 
Spring   in    the    'seventies, — navvying   on    dock    and 

line 
From  Southampton  to  Newcastle-on-Tyne, — 
In  'seventy-four  a  year  of  soldiering 
With  the  Berkshires, — hoeing  and  harvesting 
^In  half  the  shires  where  corn  and  couch  will  grow. 
His  sons,  three  sons,  were  fighting,  but  the  hoe 
And  reap-hook  he  liked,  or  anything  to  do  with  trees. 
He  fell  once  from  a  poplar  tall  as  these  : 
The  Flying  Man  they  called  him  in  hospital. 
"  If  I  flew  now,  to  another  world  I'd  fall." 
187 


He  laughed  and  whistled  to  the  small  brown  bitch 

With  spots  of  blue  that  hunted  in  the  ditch. 

Her  foxy  Welsh  grandfather  must  have  paired 

Beneath  him.     He  kept  sheep  in  Wales  and  scared 

Strangers,  I  will  warrant,  with  his  pearl  eye 

And  trick  of  shrinking  off  as  he  were  shy, 

Then  following  close  in  silence  for — for  what  ? 

"  No  rabbit,  never  fear,  she  ever  got. 

Yet  always  hunts.     To-day  she  nearly  had  one  : 

She  would  and  she  wouldn't.     'Twas  like  that.     The 

bad  one  ! 
She's  not  much  use,  but  still  she's  company, 
Though  I'm  not.     She  goes  everywhere  with  me. 
So  Alton  I  must  reach  to-night  somehow  : 
I'll  get  no  shakedown  with  that  bedfellow 
From  farmers.     Many  a  man  sleeps  worse  to-night 
Than   I   shall."     "  In  the  trenches."     "  Yes,   that's 

right. 
But  they'll  be  out  of  that — I  hope  they  be — 
This  weather,  marching  after  the  enemy." 
"  And  so  I  hope.     Good  luck."     And  there  I  nodded 
"  Good-night.     You   keep   straight   on,"     Stiffly   he 

plodded  ; 
And  at  his  heels  the  crisp  leaves  scurried  fast. 
And     the     leaf-coloured     robin     watched.       They 

passed. 
The  robin  till  next  day,  the  man  for  good. 
Together  in  the  twilight  of  the  wood. 


A  Private 


This  ploughman  dead  in  battle  slept  out  of  doors 

Many  a  frozen  night,  and  merrily 

Answered    staid    drinkers,    good    bedmen,    and    all 

bores  : 
"  At  Mrs.  Greenland's  Hawthorn  Bush,"  said  he, 
"  I    slept."     None    knew   which    bush.     Above    the 

town, 
Beyond  "  The  Drover,"  a  hundred  spot  the  down 
In  Wiltshire.     And  where  now  at  last  he  sleeps 
More  sound  in  France — that,  too,  he  secret  keeps. 


189 


Out  in   the   Dark 


Out  in  the  dark  over  the  snow 
The  fallow  fawns  invisible  go 
With  the  fallow  doe  ; 
And  the  winds  blow 
Fast  as  the  stars  are  slow. 

Stealthily  the  dark  haunts  round 

And,  when  the  lamp  goes,  without  sound 

At  a  swifter  bound 

Than  the  swiftest  hound. 

Arrives,  and  all  else  is  drowned  ; 

And  I  and  star  and  wind  and  deer. 

Are  in  the  dark  together, — near, 

Yet  far, — and  fear 

Drums  on  my  ear 

In  that  sage  company  drear. 

How  weak  and  Httle  is  the  light, 

All  the  universe  of  sight. 

Love  and  delight, 

Before  the  might. 

If  you  love  it  not,  of  night. 


Vriniei  by  Hazell,  Watson  &  Viney,  Ld.,  London  and  Aylesbury. 


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